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ADDRESS 



AT THE 



CENTENNIA 



U 







n 



OF THE 



Towi\ of T^itclfbui! 



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</<mtf 50, i<Vf;-#. 



WITH AN APPENDIX 



CONTAINING THE 

Poems, Speeches and Letters 



CONNECTED WITH THAT OCCASION. 



FITCH BURG, MASS. 

Printed at the Office of Piper. & Boutelle. 

1876. 



ADDKESS, 



AT THE 




CELEBRATION, 



OF THE 



TOWN OF . FITCHBURG. 



June 30th, 186JJ-. 



BY CHARLES H. B. SNOW 



FITCHBURG: 

PRINTED AT THE OFFICE OF PIPER & BOUTELEE. 
1876. 



r r* 



7?; ///<? Honorable City Council of the City of Fitchburg: 

Gentlemen : — The undersigned petition your honorable body to 
cause to be printed fifteen hundred copies of the valuable Historic Ad- 
dress, delivered by the late Hon. Charles H. B. Snow, at the Cen- 
tennial Celebration of this town, June 30, 1864, which for certain 
reasons has never yet been published, that the same may be preserved 
to those who may come after us, and to the future historian of our city. 
Fitchburg, Jan. 4, 1876. 

LEWIS H. BEADEORD, 1 

H. A. WILLIS, Survivors 

A. NORCROSS, of the 

T. K. WARE, \ Centennial 

E. TORREY, Committee, 

JONAS A. MARSHALL, of 1864. 
JAMES P. PUTNAM, 



CITY OF FITCHBURG. 

In City Council, January 4, 1876. 

Ordered : — That the Committee on Printing be authorized and 
instructed to cause fifteen hundred copies of the Historic Address of 
the late Hon. Charles H. B. Snow, delivered June 30, 1864, to be 
printed for the use of the city. 
Attest : 

H*£jjRY JACKSON, City Clerk, 




Amer. Ant. boc. 
25 Jl »907 



ADDRESS. 



We are to-day assembled to celebrate the Hund- 
redth Anniversary of the Town of Fitchburar. It is a 
custom almost universal, to celebrate in some form the 
birth-day — to mark as it were in a visible and impressive 
manner, the commencement of a new chapter in the 
volume of life. The existence of Corporations, invested 
as they are, by what is styled the omnipotence of the 
law, with the liberal gift of immortality, is not to be 
measured by the same standard by which we designate 
the different periods of human life. Centuries do the 
office of years in their majestic duration, and serve 
appropriately to mark their various eras. 

We are therefore come together at the expiration of 
the hundredth year of our municipality, to pay it a 
fitting tribute. 

We come also to review the years that are passed, 
and to draw from them lessons for the future — lessons 
no where so impressively taught as in the record of the 
labors, the trials, the failures, and successes of those who 
were once the actors upon the same busy stage on which 
we are now playing our respective parts in the drama of 
life. 

I do not propose however, on this occasion, to give 
you the history of Fitchburg. It would be impossible 
for me in the limits within which I am necessarily con- 



fined, even faithfully to outline it. The history of a 
hundred years of any of our municipal communities, 
faithfully and fully narrated, would embrace no small 
or unimportant part of the history of the nation. It 
would present in miniature a picture of the people in 
their first struggle with the wilderness and its savage 
tenants ; in their painful but invigorating contest with 
hardship and privation, and their final victory over the 
unfriendly circumstances of their first condition — in their 
gradual achievement of the comforts and some of the 
luxuries of civilization — in their successful establishment 
upon a firm basis, of those chief elements of individual 
and social goodness and greatness, religion and educa- 
tion — in their sharp, stern contest for a distinct 
nationality and political independence — in their anxious 
and difficult construction of that government, which, 
securing the fullest liberty to the people, should consoli- 
date the Confederacy into the splendid unity of the 
Republic — in their subsequent wonderful development 
of all the acts of peace, by which they have established 
themselves high and dominant among the powers of the 
earth — all these and much more would go to make up a 
full and truthful account of the little community of 
which we are, to-day, the representatives. He who 
faithfully tells the story of the common pebble in the 
highways, at the same time necessarily gives the history 
of the granite arches of the globe. 

Nor can I, though I would gladly do so, present to 
you minutely those features peculiar to our own town 
history — sketches of the lives of our prominent and best 
citizens — anecdotes of the perils and hardships of our ear- 



ly settlers — reminiscences of the eccentricities, fun and 
humors which crop out so quaintly from the rugged 
surface of New England character, although a volume 
not by any means uninteresting or unreadable might be 
filled with them. Such a treatment of the subject 
would evidently be foreign to an occasion like the 
present, nor would it be possible within the limits of any 
ordinary discourse. 

Instead therefore, of attempting an end clearly 
beyond my reach at this time, but which, I am happy to 
say, has been admirably attained to a certain point 
comparatively recent, by our former townsman, Rufus 
Torrey, in his excellent history. I propose to occupy 
the hour allotted to me, in considering, in a very 
general manner, as I necessarily must do, how faithfully 
and successfully this municipality of ours, has, during 
its hundred years of existence, discharged its duties and 
answered the end of its creation — and to do this we 
must consider for a moment the purposes properly to be 
subserved by town organizations, as well as the end 
which our forefathers principaly had in view in 
establishing them. In the division of the State, or 
rather Province, into counties and towns, our ancestors 
followed the precedent of the mother country. In 
England, however, the territory was subject to two 
distinct divisions : one ecclesiastical, the other civil ; 
one sub-division of the former being Parishes, and of 
the latter, Towns. This distinction was not generally 
made by our ancestors, or rather the ecclesiastical and 
civil functions were usually united in their town organi- 
zations ; and it was the usage of our town's anciently 



6 

to transact their parochial affairs at town meetings, 
making* no difference in the forms of their proceedings 
when acting upon those subjects, or upon matters of 
mere municipal or political concern. Corporate powers 
were bestowed upon communities that they might thereby 
as one great, and perhaps the chief end of their 
existence, maintain a minister of the gospel and stated 
religions services. 

The construction of highways and bridges, the erec- 
tion of public buildings, and the raising of money for 
the necessary municipal purposes, were of course objects 
of consideration, but they were subordinate. Experience, 
however, has shown that the union of church and town, 
like the union of church and state, although perhaps 
natural in the earlier stages of social development soon 
becomes an inconvenience, and a cause of difficulty and 
dissension. Availing myself therefore of the lessons of 
experience, I think I may safely enlarge somewhat upon 
the early idea of the legitimate functions of towns, and 
pronounce them to be the establishments of unrestrained 
public religious worship, the diffusion of general educa- 
tion, the affording of facilities for political deliberation 
and representation and for united political action and 
the development of all conveniences of a public nature, 
and such as promote social and business intercourse. 

I propose to regard the town briefly in each of these 
aspects. 

But first revert with me for a moment to the com- 
mencement of our corporate existence, one hundred 
years ago. The year 1764 was pregnant with events of 
vast importance. The causes that concurred to bring the 



American Republic into existence in that year sprang 
into full activity. The war that had been waged be- 
tween Great Britain, France and Spain, had just been 
terminated by a treaty of peace. England was at full 
liberty to turn her attention to her colonies, and to ma- 
ture schemes for converting them into profitable sources 
of revenue. In 17G4 the intention of the British Minis- 
try to quarter troops in America and support them at 
her expense was first announced. The question of the 
right to tax America without allowing' her the right of 

© O © 

representation was at the same time unanimously deter- 
mined in the affirmative. And on the 10th of March of 
the same year the House of Commons voted a resolution 
that it was proper to charge certain stamp-duties on the 
colonies or plantations. Thus the year of the incorpora- 
tion of the town was signalized by the inauguration of a 
policy on the part of the mother country that led to rev- 
olution, and terminated in national independence. At 
the incorporation of the town more than forty years had 
elapsed since David Page, the first white settler upon 
Turkey Hills, as the region now comprized in Fitchburg 
and Lunenburg was then called, had heralded civiliza- 
tion with the smoke of his clearing. 

Between that time and 1764, great changes had 
been effected. The unbroken forest, the echoes of which 
had once been only awakened by the screams of the 
eagle, the howl of the wolf, or the whoop of the Indian, 
had here and there been rolled back, and its gloomy 
recesses irradiated by the gladsome light of the sun, 
smiled with the tender promise of spring and were 
clothed with the golden splendors of autumn. The 



8 

savage tribes, whose fierce incursions had so often 
darkened the soil of the province with human blood, 
and reddened the midnight sky with the light of burning 
villages, had been driven to the frontier, and the settler 
no longer started from his restless couch with blanched 
cheek and hurried breath, at the snapping of a twig or 
the cry of a night bird. There were as yet, no church, 
nor school-house within the limits of the new town ; 
but the hills were dotted here and there with comfort- 
able farm-houses. The Nashua dashed along unchecked 
in its devious course, its waters unvexed by the mill- 
wheel; but the rough and winding bridle-paths, over which 
the early settler had ridden to the sabbath service, his 
trusty rifle in his hand, and his faithful spouse upon the 
pillion behind him, had been broadened and wrought 
into highways, and convenient access to the neighbor- 
ing villages opened. Thus in the period of forty years, 
most of the necessaries and many of the comforts of life 
had been achieved, and domestic security attained. 

Up to the period of its incorporation, as most of you 
are aware, Fitchburg was a part of Lunenburg, which 
was incorporated in 1728. The original grant of the 
territory to the Proprietors, as they were called, was 
made by the General Court in 1719, and it also included 
that which was afterwards incorporated as Townsend and 
a large portion of Ashby. As the original orthography 
of the name Fitchburg has been a matter of some doubt 
and dispute, it may be proper to say that it terminated 
with the letter h, although it has been for a long time 
entirely dropped. It is spelled Fitchburgh in the origi- 
nal act of incorporation, but it appears on examination 



of the Town Records that the final letter was very soon 
dropped. It is not certainly known for whom the town 
was named, but it is supposed by some, that John Fitch, 
memorable for having- been taken captive by the Indians, 
who was the first man on the committee to procure the 
act of incorporation, is entitled to that honor. There was 
a Col. Zachary Fitch, a wealthy merchant of Boston, 
whose portrait hangs over my head, who owned exten- 
sive tracts of land in the town, who is supposed by many 
to have given the name, and the probabilities certainly 
are in his favor. 

The number of families in Fitchburg at the time of 
its incorporation was not far from forty, and the whole 
number of inhabitants did not much, if at all, exceed 
two hundred and fifty. The houses were widely scat- 
tered, and while in the " Old City " there was but a sin- 
gle dwelling house, in the remainder of the present pop- 
ulous centre which was then traversed by a road nearly 
in the same place with the present, and leading over Flat 
Rocks, there was not one. The occupation of the men 
was mainly agriculture. The rough and stony, but vig- 
orous soil, afforded to energetic labor a comfortable sup- 
port and a sure but small annual saving. The habits of 
the people were simple, and economy and industry were 
inculcated in a school whose lessons are rarely forgotten 
— that of experience. Of manufactories there were none, 
or rather I should say they were everywhere, lor every 
farm-house had its spinning wheel whose busy hum was 
a spell by which the careful housewife exorcised the 
fiend idleness. 

Indeed, as to women, the same compliment might 



10 

have been paid them that was given to those of his day 
by Croaker in Goldsmith's comedy, of the good-natured 
man, who says : " The women of my time were good for 
something. I have seen a lady dressed from top to toe 
in her own manufactures formerly ; but now-a-days 
there is nothing of their own manufacture about them 
but their faces." It is hardly necessary to say that New 
England character, as it was found a hundred years ago, 
is now essentially modified. The mysterious influences of 
country and climate have wrought marvellous changes, 
physical and mental on the original stock, and the influx 
of wealth and the general diffusion of luxury have 
worked even greater. Very influential too, has been the 
constant influx from foreign shores, absorbed to be sure 
in the great stream of national life, but constantly color- 
ing and modifying it. Strongly marked too, particularly 
in their effect upon the character of the rural population, 
have been the results of those great mechanical discov- 
eries, by whose aid time and distance have been prac- 
tically vanquished, and not only the town and country 
made one, but the nations of the earth brought as it 
were face to face. But under the congenial influences of 
labor, hardship, and frugality, that were the lot of our 
early predecessors, were nurtured sturdy and self-reliant 
traits of character, that were afterwards displayed in full 
vigor in the arduous struggle for independence ; and it 
was under such auspices that our fathers laid the founda- 
tions of this social edifice which has sheltered so many 
generations in the past, and which we trust beautified 
and improved by the fostering hands of those who shall 
come after us, will be the home of industry, virtue and 
intelligence in the future. 



11 

I have already said that the religious element was 
predominant in the character of the early settlers, and 
everything connected with the public support of relig- 
ous worship, was invested with an interest and import- 
ance, that in these days of comparative lukewarmness 
and indifference, it is difficult fully to appreciate. Their 
feelings were easily aroused upon the subject, and hence 
Parish troubles and difficulties make no small part of 
the early history of Fitchburg. On perusing the first 
volumes of the Town Records, I found thickly scat- 
tered over its pages, the evidence of the intense inter- 
est, not to say acrimony, with which our predecessors 
engaged in unhappy controversies, growing in the first 
instance out of the conflicting claims of the east and west 
parts of the Town, to the location of the meeting-house, 
and afterwards out of disputes between the old Parish 
and the new societies which sprang up around it. The 
troubles that arose from these causes agitated the little 
community for nearly half a century. A few words of 
explanation of the peculiar system under which these dif- 
ficulties originated may not be inappropriate. 

The old parochial system established by our ances- 
tors has now entirely disappeared. 

The grand feature of difference between the ancient 
and modern theory of the support of public worship is 
found in this : that the former was compulsory, while 
the latter is founded on voluntary contributions. At the 
first establishment of most townships a certain portion of 
land was set apart and dedicated to the use of the church, 
and until within a comparatively recent period all inhab- 
itants of towns and parishes were holden to pay ministe- 



12 

rial taxes. Each town was required to be provided with 
an able, learned, and orthodox minister, and by the earlier 
provisions of the ancient charter, the right of suffrage in 
all elections and other civil matters was confined to church 
members in full communion. Each town was required 
to provide suitable houses for public worship, and no 
persons without the consent of the town, or the order of 
the General Court, were permitted to erect or make use 
of any house for public religious service. It was also at 
a very early period made the duty of all to attend Di- 
vine worship on the Lord's Day and Thanksgiving day, 
under a penalty of five shillings for a non-compliance 
with the law. 

At the formation of the Constitution, the stringency 
of the law was so far relaxed that each religious society 
was permitted to choose its own teacher, and each tax- 
payer had a right to pay the amount of his tax towards 
the support of a minister of his own denomination. Ev- 
ery person was obliged to belong to some society and to 
pay a tax for the support of religious worship. In 1811 
voluntary associations for religious purposes were first 
invested with many of the rights, privileges and powers 
of corporations, and any number of individuals were 
authorized upon filing a proper certificate with the Clerk 
of the town, to procure their exemption from taxation by 
forming themselves into a religious society. Thus by 
degrees the religious and secular elements of the town 
organization were separated. 

In exploring so much of our earlier ministerial and 
parochial history as has been transmitted to us, I find 
some points well worthy of a moment's notice. The tie 



13 

that united the minister to his Parish was of a strength 
and tenacity in striking- contrast with the slenderness of 
that which binds them together at the present day. It was 
regarded as an union of a sanctity but little inferior to that 
of the marriage bond ; a connection to be terminated only 
with life. The sacred office was thus invested with a 
higher degree of dignity and made capable of much 
wider and more powerful influence than at present. The 
minister was not regarded as we fear he sometimes is to- 
day, as the servant of the Parish, bound to study and 
submit to every prejudice and caprice ; and whose prin- 
cipal and most important duty is to regale the fastidious 
tastes of his hearers, by a weekly display of his choicest 
flowers of rhetoric, woven into the similitude of a sermon 
— nor did the Parish regard the minister merely as a 
necessary and ornamental appendage to a highly culti- 
vated social condition, as something to be enjoyed like a 
favorite opera singer, or to be pitted like a race horse 
in an intellectual match against the favorite of a rival 
society, and like a race horse or a singer to be discarded 
at any moment for a new and more brilliant competitor ; 
but on the contrary, a becoming and rational view was 
taken of the relation, and he was considered as charged 
with the most solemn duty ever imposed upon man, 
with a trust of such immeasurable importance, that in a 
degree it removed and set him apart from his fellow men? 
and invested him at all times with a peculiar sacredness 
and influence. As year after year he set the seal of con- 
secration upon the brow of infancy, invoked the bless- 
ing of God upon the solemn marriage vow, soothed the 
sufferings of the sick and the anguish of the bereaved 



14 

by prayer, by sympathy, and the sustaining consolations 
of his Master's word, smoothed the rapidly descending 
pathway of the aged, and supported and strengthened 
its faltering steps, and finally hallowed the passage of the 
poor remains of mortality to the tomb by the affecting 
and impressive services of the Church, he became indisso- 
lubly connected with all that is highest, grandest, sweetest 
and saddest of human life. He was not the brilliant lec- 
turer, the fluent declaimer upon the popular side of the 
exciting topics of the day, but the spiritual director, 
friend and father of those entrusted to his charge. 

From the churches of that day an instructive lesson 
might also be drawn. In the language of Torrey in his 
admirable history of Fitchburg: "The people of those 
days were less scrupulous in regard to the place where 
they met for religious worship than we of the ninteenth 
century are." They probably thought that their Maker 
regarded more the feelings with which his creatures of- 
fered up their petitions and adorations than the place in 
which they assembled for that purpose. Before the 
church was built, the early settlers met for worship in 
the tavern of Thomas Cowdin; and when in 1766 they 
determined to build a meeting-house, they also thought 
it proper to proceed with it no faster than they could pay 
for it — the town finding the stuff and hiring people to 
work on it — and after erecting the walls and roofing 
and " glassing" as they called it, the edifice, they ar- 
ranged themselves on temporary seats around their preach- 
er, and thus it was many years before the work was finally 
completed. But they had the satisfaction of feeling that 
what they owned, they had honestly paid for, and wor- 



15 

shiping beneath their humble roof, they presented per- 
haps a more dignified and pleasing spectacle than some 
modern congregations within its gorgeous and gilded 
structure dedicated not more to the worship of God 
than to the admiration of man, and occupied, it is to be 
feared by some of its tenants, with an approach to the 
same feelings with which they would present themselves 
at the most conspicuous box at the opera, or exhibit the 
most costly equipage at the park. There was one cere- 
mony however, somewhat at variance with this pleasing 
simplicity and humility, but which cannot be wholly for- 
eign to the spirit and temper of the people of that day 
who still entertained that reverence for social rank and es- 
tablished authority of which but few traces now remain, 
and which was the yet uneffaced impress of the institu- 
tions of the mother country. This ceremony or custom, 
was called dignifying the house — a phrase of some per- 
plexity ; and consisted in assigning to the members of 
the Parish, their seats in the order of their social posi- 
tion ; the standard of dignity being the pulpit, and near- 
ness or remoteness to it determining relative rank. To the 
credit of our ancestors be it said, that such a custom, 
which could not be put in practice to-day without danger 
of an explosion, as violent if not so perilous, as that of a 
magazine of gunpowder does not appear to have excited 
any particularly ill feeling or expression of discontent. 

It is possible, however, that I may have drawn my 
sketch of the early parish and the early church with too 
flattering a hand for it must be confessed that the 
strength and closeness of the tie that bound together the 
pastor and the people, while under favorable circumstan- 



16 

ces, it made their mutual relations of a very high and en- 
nobling nature, were productive in case of unsuitableness 
of character or temperaments, of a degree of uneasiness 
and irritation, of which we at the present day have but 
very little idea. 

Our predecessors were not always fortunate in their 
church relations, and their records exhibit many sore 
contentions and long embittered controversies. The Rev. 
John Payson was the first settled minister in Fitchburg, 
and he held the sacred office from 1766 to 1794 when 
his connection with the church was dissolved on account 
of mental infirmity finally resulting in insanity and sui- 
cide. This disease exhibited itself at intervals for many 
years before it took such control of him as to put a nec- 
essary termination to his professional labors ; and much 
uneasiness, during this period was naturally felt by his 
parish, although he secured for a long period the love 
and respect of his people, and was generally regarded as 
a worthy and upright man capable of much usefulness 
when not subject to his infirmity. 

The Rev. Samuel Worcester was next ordained in 
1797, and in 1802 the connection was dissolved by the 
sanction of a regularly convened council. He was after- 
wards settled in Salem and became very eminent. He 
was appointed Professor of Theology in Dartmouth col- 
lege ; distinguished himself as an able opponent of Dr. 
Channing in the Unitarian controversy and was chiefly 
instrumental in establishing the Board of Commissioners 
for Foreign Missions. His son, the Rev. Dr. S. A. Wor- 
cester of Salem, I am happy to say is present on this oc- 
casion. I would gladly continue our church history fur- 



17 

tlier; there are names very precious to many of my 
hearers associated with man)- tender and sacred recollec- 
tions, that of the venerated and venerable pastor of my 
earlier years, the Rev. Calvin Lincoln, who is now pres- 
ent, among them : on which I could pleasantly linger, 
but it would be impossible within my present limits. 

I have thus briefly indicated the history while the 
Church and Town organizations were blended, but to 
follow it further would require a volume. It is sufficient 
to say that soon after the resignation of Dr. Worcester 
the parochial functions of the town ceased. The socie- 
ties afterwards formed were successfully supported, and 
are still zealously engaged in their good work; although 
some of them seem to have had more than the usual 
share of trials and difficulties, a narration of which 
could prove neither pleasant nor profitable. 

Next to the church, the school has long been the 
cherished institution of New England. General educa- 
tion has been regarded, not only as an object desirable 
on grounds of charity and philanthropy, but for reasons 
of public policy. If the chief wealth of a state consist 
in her men, then it is obviously the part of enlightened 
economy to husband her resources, and to see that the 
powers of the citizen for usefulness are properly devel- 
oped and directed into suitable channels of social indus- 
try. Intellectual power dormant for want of means of 
education, is the greatest possible reproach to the econ- 
omy of the state in which it exists. It is so much with- 
held from her most valuable productive resources, 
treasure buried in the earth ; the highest and most 
powerful of human agencies suspended. It is to be 



18 

supposed that the earliest settlers of Fitchburg were to 
a certain extent impressed with the importance of this 
great subject ; but in the days of the first organization 
of the township, there were so many matters oi immedi- 
ate necessity pressing upon them, and such an increased 
burden of expense, that they could not give it the 
attention it undoubtedly deserved. There was no pub- 
lic school during the first year of the town's incorpora- 
tion, although there were schools existing within the 
precincts of Lunenburg. The second year it was voted 
that schools should be kept during the winter, and the 
somewhat modest sum of ten dollars was appropriated 
for that purpose. In 1766, £8, or $26.66, was set apart 
for public schools, and this was the standing appropria- 
tion for many years. As the town increased in wealth 
and size, larger sums were raised, and, in 1828, the 
comparatively liberal amount of $1,000 was voted. 

During all this period, however, private schools 
were supported, and three-fourths of the instruction of 
the children is said to have been received in that way. 

During the last twenty-five years, appropriations of 
tolerable liberality have been made, new and commo- 
dious school houses built; an elegant high school build- 
ing erected, and a respectable rank in the educational 
scale of towns attained. 

The real advance of a community in refinement and 
the arts of civilization cannot perhaps be better indicated 
than by a comparison of the schools of the earlier part 
of the century and those of the present day. There is 
perhaps no one thing which demands from the community 
more of the results of a high mental and moral culture, 



19 

than the establishment of a successful system of public 
schools. In an imperfectly educated and partially de- 
veloped state of society it would be a simple impossibility. 
It demands all the aids and appliances of a highly cul- 
tivated and refined social state. The condition of the 
earliest settlers was not compatible with the establishment 
of what would now be considered a high grade of public 
education, A noble training indeed of a certain kind 
they were receiving, but not that to be had in the schools. 
In their struggles with a rough soil and a vigorous 
climate, and the adversities that hedge in the pioneer on 
every side, they were disciplined into mental and physical 
strength, self-reliance, fortitude, industry and economy ; 
qualities which lay the broad and strong foundation of 
states and empires. Their circumstances required the 
education which develops and strengthens, not that which 
refines and adorns. The marble of the column must be 
wrought into the solid strength of the shaft, before it is 
carved into the delicate beauty of the capital. 

The discipline of their schools in its imperfectness 
was to a certain extent an exception to the general course 
of training that formed our predecessors. 

An Octogenarian, writing of his earliest school days, 
says that the extent of rural instruction was then consid- 
ered to be properly limited to what a worthy London 
Alderman designated as the three R's, viz : Reading, 
Kiting, Kithmetic. To cypher beyond the Rule of 
Three was deemed a notable achievement and were sur- 
plusage among the average of country scholars. Another 
says u that the school which he attended consisted mainly 
of small scholars, some of them perhaps sent to school to 



20 

get them out of the way," (a thing not entirely unknown 
at the present day,) "the teacher owned a small arithme- 
tic, name not recollected, from which he gave out ques- 
tions, if perchance any lad was old enough to encounter 
the ground rules. Slates and pencils were unknown,paper 
was scarce, imported and costly, and those who could not 
procure it cyphered on birch bark, and that was the 
article on which in due time I made my first figures. I 
often heard old people say that my first teacher was great 
in figures, that he could cypher as far as the rule of three, 
and they had no doubt he could actually tell how many 
barley-corns it would take to reach round the earth.'' 

The school houses of that day were lamentably 
deficient in everything requisite for the comfort of the 
scholars ; the seats narrow and inconvenient, and the 
temperature in winter graduated by different degrees of 
proximity to the fire into frigid, temperate and torrid 
zones. The discipline was based upon King Solomon's 
maxim, but the despotic reign of the master was not un- 
frequently disturbed by rebellions of the most determined 
character. In short one can form but a veij imj 
idea of the public schools of the past from the public 
school of the present. 

In development of material resources and increase 
of population and wealth, few towns can show a more 
encouraging record than Fitchburg. At its incorporation, 
the only mill on the Nashua, was the Kimball Grist Mill 
whose dam consisted of a log laid across the river with 
spiles driven in above it. The first store in town was 
opened by Ephraim Kimball in 1772, where the stone 
factory now stands. The brick factory now occupied by 



21 

the Fitchburg "Woollen Mill Company, was the first fac- 
tory erected in Fitchburg and was commenced about the 
year 1807. 

What a striking contrast does the Fitchburg of that 
clay present to the Fitchburg of this. The turbulent 
Nashua which our fathers regarded as a malicious sprite, 
delighted at the spring floods to hurl its swollen waters 
upon their painfully constructed and expensive bri 
and with a roar of exultation to bear away their shatter- 
ed fragments,proved like many a mischievous youth when 
subdued and disciplined, as energetic for good, as it had 
once been for evil. The power that for ages idly slum- 
bered, or was aroused but for destruction, now puts in 
motion thousands of busy wheels, lifts the ponderous 
hammers, impels the flying shuttles, and like the vital 
force pervades every sinew and fibre in this great frame 
of human industry. 

The character of the population has seconded the 
natural advantages afforded by its waterfalls. That, 
which like the Nashua might at first have seemed a mis- 
fortune, a difficult soil and the absence of wealth has been 
a substantial blessing, inasmuch as it has served to rear 
a population industrious, frugal, inventive and self-re- 
liant. In the great hive there have been no drones, and 
the surplus earnings of the population have been at once 
invested in the industrial capital of the town. Our men 
of business too, have for the same reason been made 
thoroughly acquainted with the lower departments of 
their occupation before they have advanced to the 
higher. The builder has served his apprenticeship with 
the hammer and the plane, the machinist hardened his 



22 

hands and toughened his sinews on the forge, before he 
took his place in the counting room, and the manufac- 
turer had a thorough acquaintance with practical opera- 
tion of every part of his machinery, before he aspired to 
take the helm and navigate among the rocks and quick- 
sands of his difficult and perilous business. Thence suc- 
cess has crowned his judicious enterprise, and a constantly 
enlarging field of business invites new reapers to the 
harvest. 

The year 1845 was destined to be a memorable om 
in the annals of Fitchburgr. The Fitchburg- Railroad wa; 
then completed, the natural resources of the town for th< 
first time made fully available, and a new business er. 
inaugurated. This great work, for great it was in vie"\ 
of the difficulties and embarassments that had to be ovei 
come before sufficient support could be secured to wai 
rant even its commencement, was the fruit of the energ} 
foresight and perseverance of our own citizens, chit 
among whom I may be permitted to mention Samu 
Willis, whose name is held in affectionate remembranc 
for his many public and private virtues that illustrate 
his unobtrusive but useful career, and Alvah Crocke 
whose comprehensive policy even at that early day co- 
ceived and fully grasped that system of railway inte 
communication that was to unite New England with tl 
West, and make our northern vallies the channe. 
through which the boundless agricultural wealth of t' 
prairie should flow to the ocean. 

The difficulties they had to overcome were many 
them such as would be unknown in a simular enterpri 
at the present day. Our railway system was compai 



23 

tively in its infancy. Fitchburg nestled among tbe hills 
in bleak and barren Northern Worcester, was but little 
known. Many who were solicited for aid, professed to 
have never heard of it ; the country through which the 
road was to pass was neither densely populated nor rich, 
the construction of a continuation which should make it 
a great northern and western line of communication was 
considered a wild speculation. Bold enterprise was not 
so much the fashion of that day as of the present, and it 
was under all these difficulties that by the exercise of 
that faith, that is said to work miracles, and by that per- 
severance that feeds upon rebuffs, the work was commenc- 
ed and carried to its triumphant completion. From that 
day Fitchburg may date the period of her real growth, 
and the commencement of a business career of great 
prosperity. Another result of general interest and great 
importance followed the successful construction of the 
Fitchburg Railway. It had previously been supposed 
that all undertakings of such vast magnitude, could onlv 
be carried on by the great Capitalists as they are called, 
but it was then for the first time discovered that they 
could possibly be dispensed with and that the united 
contributions of those who lived upon the line of the 
proposed route, swelled into an aggregate amply sufficient 
for all purposes. The larger proportion of the stock of 
the Fitchburg Railway was accordingly taken by persons 
of moderate means, as a secure and permanent invest- 
ment, and it is so held to-day. The discovery thus made 
was generally availed of, and an entire revolution in 
these great social enterprises followed, So long as all 
depended on a few men of great wealth, cautious and 



24 

conservative, bat few railways could be constructed. 
But by massing and aggregating the surplus wealth of 
the community, the country was soon crossed by an iron 
net- work. But few towns have felt the life-giving iu- 
fluence of this policy more than Fitchburg. 

To-day as we look around us and see the Nashua 
for miles, studded with its workshops and manufactories, 
its valleys and the neighboring hill-sides adorned with 
the neat and comfortable homes with which New Eng- 
land labor rewards its votaries, as we witness on every 
hand the evidences of happiness and prosperity, and then 
recall the untamed and willful ]STashua, the bleak and 
barren steeps, the tangled swampy valley and the seclud- 
ed and infrequent farm house of a hundred years ago, 
we may in a measure appreciate the results of a century 
of wonderful mechanical ingenuity and invention, and 
also of a century of steady New England enterprise and 
labor. More than fifty different varieties of manufacture 
are at present successfully carried on within our limits. 
Our paper-mills supply the market with over five million 
pounds of paper annually, and the New York Herald, 
Avhose daily issues fly as if on the wings of the wind to 
every point of the compass, we might almost say whiten- 
ing the land like snow-flakes, draws a large portion of its 
vast supplies of paper from one Fitchburg mill. Our 
manufactories largely supply the South American and 
Cuban markets with chairs. The ingenuity and admira- 
ble workmanship of our great Machine Company have 
been rewarded with extensive orders from the most dis- 
tant parts of the globe. Our scythes, our cutlery, our 
cloths, our shoes, and our hats have been scattered broad- 



25 

cast over the states, and within the last eventful year — 
sad change from the arts of peace to those of war — can- 
non cast in our foundries, monsters of modern destructive 
art, frown from our harbor and coast defences, while 
others, whose beautiful symmetry, lightness and strength 
half beguile us from the thought of their terrible uses, 
have helped swell the thunder of the bloody battle fields 
of the South. May we not almost appropriate the lan- 
guage of the classic poet and ask " Quae regio in terris 
non 'plena nostri laboris. " 

There remains still one more aspect in which the 
town is to be regarded, and that is in its relations to the 
state and general government. Ordinarily these relations 
are of such a character that they do not claim particular 
attention, but in times of National and State emergency 
they assume a high degree of importance. The long 
struggle of the Revolution, the war of 1812 and the 
present contest with the revolted states are the chief oc- 
casions on which the town has been called upon to con- 
tribute its assistance to the general government, and to 
call into action the courage, patriotism and public spirit 
of its citizens — and I think I may say after a careful 
perusal of the records, that on none of these occasions 
were the necessary qualities found wanting. As early as 
1768 Fitchburg sent an agent to Boston to represent the 
town in the general meeting held there to organize 
measures of resistance to the revenue act. In 1773 in 
response to a letter from the town of Boston, a series of 
resolves was adopted and sent to the committee of cor- 
respondence, in which after setting forth the inestimable 
value of Liberty, they declared themselves determined 



26 

to preserve it at every cost, and denounce its enemies as 
the enemies of their lawful sovereign King George, and 
his illustrious family, because tyranny and slavery are 
fundamentally repugnant to the British Constitution. 
They protest that they are proud to have their little ob- 
scure names associated with their American brethren as 
instruments in the hand of God to save Britain from 
complete destruction which was visibly impending ; and 
in conclusion they say "and with respect to the East Tea 
for as much as we are now informed that the Town of 
Boston, and the neighboring towns have made such no- 
ble opposition to said Tea being brought into Boston 
subject to a duty so directly tending to the enslaving of 
America, it is our opinion that your opposition is 
just and equitable and the people of the town are ready 
to afford all the assistance in their power to keep off all 
such infringments." 

To the Provincial Congress which met in Concord, in 
October, 177*4, for the purpose of maturing measures for 
the defense of the Province, the town sent Capt. Da- 
vid Goodrich as agent "and also passed the very signifi- 
cant note, that the overplus, if any remained of the con- 
tribution by which their delegate was paid, should be 
expended in powder. The selectmen at the same time 
procured the enlistment of forty minute men and pro- 
vided for them the necessary powder, lead and flints. The 
constables of the town acting in accordance with the gen- 
eral spirit of resistance, having refused to pay over to 
Harrison Gray the money assessed by the Province, the 
town voted to indemnify the assessors for not returning 
their names. On the morning of the 19th of April, 1775, 



27 

news of the fight at Concord reached the town at 9 
o'clock, the alarm gun was instantly fired, and the min : 
ute men who had spent the previous day in drill were 
within an hour or two on their march to the scene of ac- 
tion at which they arrived that morning. A large bag- 
gage wagon of provisions having been sent after them, 
and not being needed, it was afterwards sold and the 
proceeds given to the Rev. John Payson on the princi- 
ple probably, Torrey says in his History, " that if the 
money were not wanted by those who fought our battles, 
it could not be better appropriated than by being given 
to one who earnestly prayed for our success." 

In July, 1776, in compliance with a resolve by the 
State Legislature that each town should pass upon the 
question of national independence, the Town voted 
" that if the Honorable Continental Congress, should 
for the safety of these United Colonies, declare them in- 
dependent of the Kingdom of Great Britain, we, the in- 
habitants of the Town of Fitchburg, will with our lives 
and fortunes, suppoit them in the measure." The Colo- 
nies and Great Britain were then fully engaged in their 
great struggle, and throughout the whole of the distress- 
ing and prolonged conflict, there is no evidence that 
Fitchburg for a moment faltered or shrank from bearing 
her full share of the national burden. vOf the severity 
of that burden we can form but a faint conception. "We 
have been engaged for the past three years in a war of 
gigantic proportions, in which our resources, vast as they 
are, have been en lied into full requisition ; we have seen 
in answer to successive requisitions, the workshop, the 
counting-room, and the field deserted and their former oc- 



28 

cupants sickening in the poisonous air of southern 
swamps, or falling in the red lines of battle ; we have 
witnessed the heart-breaking sorrow of those they left be- 
hind them ; we have shared in their terrible anxiety as 
the tidings of great battles peeled along the wires and 
thrilled the general heart like an electric shock, or the 
echoes of the weary march along pestilential shores 
tracked close by famine and disease have indistinctly 
reached their ears ; we have heard the cry of anguish 
that could not be restrained when those war-worn ranks 
returned, but the loved ones were not there — all these 
have we seen and felt and heard and yet have not attain- 
ed a full idea of the costly offering our fathers laid upon 
the altar of their country. We have not felt the grind- 
ing pressure of physical want — we have not seen the 
hard earnings of a life of toil melt und pass away in the 
devourina" flames of war — our soil has not been black- 
ened by the passage of an invading host — our liberties 
have not been trembling for seven weary years and 
doubtful scales, hope withering and despair settling down 
like a pall — the laborer has gone peacefully to his task 
and cheerfulness and plenty have awaited his return — 
the swollen tides of business have filled to overflowing 
the ordinary channels of industry — great fortunes have 
been accumulated on every side — and the round of gay- 
ety and pleasure have been run even more madly than 
before. 

Xot thus did our fathers pass through their great or 
deal. It required the strength of all — of the old and infirm 
— of women and children, as well as of the mature and ac- 
tive to push back the power that threatened to crush 



29 

them. The energies of all were concentrated in that sin- 
gle issue, and the same entire devotion and self-sacrifice 
were required from the wife and mother who prolonged 
their labors deep into the vigils of the night to cover 
the bleeding feet and the shivering forms of those that 
surrounded the camp-fires of Valley Forge, as from the 
son and husband who faced unshrinking the tempest of 
battle. 

Page after page of the Town history as written in 
the Town Books, is dignified by the record of the efforts 
and sacrifices of our predecessors. The number of in- 
habitants, as you will remember, was at that time very 
small, and the hard New England soil, while it gave 
them a support, taxed their full energies and gave them 
but small superfluity. They knew nothing of the over- 
flowing- abundance which commerce and manufactures 
have spread over the land, and there were no great mag- 
azines stored with the munitions of war, the slow accu- 
mulations of long years of peace, which now like vast 
reservoirs supply the multitudinous, wasteful streams of 
war. Arms, provisions, men, were all to be drawn from 
resources, but little more than sufficient to answer the 
full requirements of a condition of peace. They were 
to be taken, not from the superfluities, as with us, but 
from the comforts and even the necessities of life. To 
add to their difficulties, the embarrassed condition pre- 
vious to the commencement of the war, had resulted in 
great scarcity of money. To supply this want, grown 
pressing from the great increase in the price of labor 
and the necessaries of life consequent upon the with- 
drawal of so much productive labor from the resources 



30 

of the country, Congress made large issues of paper 
money, promising to redeem them at convenient season. 
These bills soon began rapidly to depreciate, and to 
remedy this difficulty government made them legal ten- 
ders. This step arrested temporarily the downward 
progress of the Continental money, as it was called but 
it was soon resumed. A further attempt was made to 
arrest the depreciation by establishing an arbitrary tar- 
iff of prices for labor and provisions, but it was equally 
unsuccessful as all such attempts have ever been found 
to be. "With such rapidity did this paper money fall in 
the scale of value, that while on the first of January, 
1777 it was at par, in three years one dollar in specie 
was worth $32.50 in Continental money and at the 
close of the fourth year it was little better than brown 
paper. It was under all these difficulties and discourage- 
ments, that Fitchburg maintained in the field her quota 
of men, an average of from fifteen to twenty, raised for 
each of them in addition to his regular pay from the 
United States, the sum of three hundred dollars as 
bounty, giving notes for it payable in produce at market 
value, and supplied their ratio of beef, clothing, and 
money for the army. And during all this time and 
amid all these privations, reverses and manifold sufferings, 
it does not appear that they once faltered or looked back 
with regret upon the step they had taken. Individual 
instances there were of loyalty and affection to the old 
government, but any utterance of such sentiments was 
immediately repressed by a course of dicipline which if 
not convincing was at least effective. I find upon the 
Records a vote of the Town to choose a committee to in- 



31 

vestigate the sentiments of the inhabitants, and if any- 
one were found entertaining inimical opinions, to at once 
report him ; and Torrey records that more than one in- 
dividual was threatened with a coat of tar and feathers, 
or even with the destruction of his house tor his linger- 
ing loyalty or his lukewarmness in the "popular cause, 
and this summary process as he pithily adds, induced 
those who had inimical opinions to keep them to them- 
selves. Nor can this severity under the circumstances 
be regarded as wholly unjustifiable, for their re- 
sources were too scanty and the disparity between 
themselves and the enemy in almost every particular, 
too formidable to permit the fatal weakness which would 
be the result of a divided sentiment. 

In the war of 1812 unpopular as it was in New 
England, Fitchburg bore its part without apparent mur- 
muring, nor does it appear to have materially ruffled the 
current of the existence of its inhabitants. 

ISTo other national or state event occurred to call 
forth the loyalty, courage or self sacrifice of Fitchburg 
until the burstino- forth of the sad and terrible civil war 
now raging. On this occasion I have no desire, nor is 
it necessary to do more than to point with pride to the 
vigorous and patriotic action of citizens. I cannot but 
feel, however, as I look back from this sunny and joy- 
ous interval, upon the events of the past three years, my 
heart penetrated with emotions of profound sadness, I 
cannot forget, even if I would, that sad rivers of frater- 
nal blood separate kindred hearts to-day that yearn with 
the full strength of filial, fraternal, or parental love, to 
mingle together once again, that there are those beneath 



32 

the southern sky, and the alien flag, whose eyes first op- 
ened on these scenes, whose earliest memories are of 
boyish sports on these hill sides, and who turn sorrow- 
ful and longing- looks to-day, to that old home, from which 
no sectional hate, no civil strife, no madness of the hour, 
can ever aleniate them, or efface one sweet and tender rec- 
ollection. And I cannot but feel that on this occasion 
that at least to-day the old homestead would, if she 
could, gather within her walls, all her children and fold 
them to her heart unquestioned. She would weave 
around her a spell so potent, that every discordant sound 
of fraternal strife, should break on her outmost limits, 
and die away unheard. But while the retrospect, to ev- 
ery feeling heart, must be one of unutterable sadness, 
not the less does it become us on this occasion to pay a 
fitting tribute to the energv, faith and devotion of our 
citizens. It is not alone the vices of mankind that are 
forced into startling growth • by the fierce light and red 
rain of war, but many of the virtues too, and those the 
noblest that adorn the human soul are developed with 
equal vigor. 

AVithin the last three years, men have learned that 
the highest and most arduous duty of a citizen is due 
the nation, and their hearts have been purified and en- 
nobled, as the narrow views and unworthy motives that 
spring up and grow rank in that bosom in which no 
great passion lives, have been burned away by the hal- 
lowed and hallowing love of country. All the manly 
and robust virtues, that are so often dwarfed in peace, 
and sunk in luxury, spring into their full growth and 
statue, and strength is born from hardship, self-reliance, 



33 

and from danger ; patience from suffering- ; courage from 
conflict ; and magnanimity from courage. 

Woman, too, has learned that life has paths for her 
to tread, sublime, though stern and rocky, and rising 
to the lofty height of the occasion she has emerged 
from the atmosphere of petty cares and frivolities in 
which so many of her nobler qualities are lost, and 
breathed the inspiring air of self-renunciation, self-sac- 
rifice, and wide and active benevolence. Let us be duly 
thankful for the Graceful and fragrant flowers that 
spring up in the stern and desolate track of war. 

The history of the exertions and sacrifices of our 
citizens commences with the be«rinnin<x of the war, and 
from that time to the present, they have poured forth 
their treasure without stint or reluctance, and sealed 
their devotion to their cause with their best blood upon 
the battle field. To every call a response has gone 
forth, as cheerful and generous as that your ancestors 
returned almost a hundred years ago, and the anguish 
of the wounded and the last hours of the dying, sad vic- 
tims of the terrible battle fields of Virginia, have never 
failed to be soothed by your thoughtful solicitude. And 
when the record is made up of those who served, and 
those who fell in the cause to which they had conse- 
crated themselves, you need not fear that honorable place 
will not be found for those brave men, our citizens, whose 
names will ever be held in tender remembrance by those 
whose annals they have served so nobly to illustrate. 

•• How sleep the brave who sink to rest, 
By all their country's wishes blest, 
Where Spring with dewy fingers cold, 



34 

Returns to deck their hallowed mould. 
She there shall find a sweeter sod, 
Than fancy's feet have ever trod. 

" By fairy forms their dirge is sung, 
By hands unseen their knell is rung ; 
There honor comes a pilgrim gray, 
To hless the turf that wraps their clay, 
And freedom shall awhile repair 
To dwell a weepiug hermit there." 

Thus, fellow citizens, we have briefly and imperfectly 
reviewed some of the more prominent points in the his- 
tory of the Town. We have traced its course, from its 
slender fountain in the past to the broad and prosperous 
current of the present, a current apparently tending- to a 
still more prosperous future. We have seen how well 
our predecessors have borne themselves in their relations 
to the town, and we have resolved, undoubtedly, to fully 
emulate them in the performance of our whole duty. 
But do not let us forget how humble a niche is this town 
of ours in the great Temple reared and dedicated by our 
ancestors to the freedom, unity and happiness of those 
who should succeed them ; and as we recall the patient 
labor with which they laid its deep and broad founda- 
tions ; the precious blood with which they cemented its 
lofty walls, as painfully, stone by stone, they grew under 
their forming' care ; the wisdom and foresight with which 
they prepared it to be the home of a great, happy and 
harmonious nation ; as we meditate on the lessons of 
wisdom which they have inscribed on its tablets, and 
kneel at the altars whence their prayers for our welfare 
and prosperity ascended, let us resolve in the future more 
diligently to watch over and defend it ; to preserve it re- 



35 

lig-iously in the spirit and faith in which it was erected ; 
to repair, if God in his mercy grant that it be possible, 
the terrible ruin wrought in it by the wicked, the erring 
and the unreflecting ; and to restore it to its original 
grandeur and beauty, purified, reconsecrated, and to 
stand with its glorious pinnacles sparkling in the first 
beams of the morning, and gilded by the last rays of 
the evening sun, so long as liberty shall find a resting 
place on earth. 

And now, in conclusion, let me welcome you all to 
this interval of holy calm — this hour of respite from the 
din of contention and the clash of arms — this banquet of 
sweet and sacred emotions. To-day the old homestead 
recalls all her wanderers, gathers all her children togeth- 
er beneath the venerable roof tree which has sheltered 
so many generations, and spreads for them her ample 
and hospitable board. Open freely your hearts to the 
tender and elevating inspirations of the hour ; dedicate 
the day to remembrances of the past, to the strengthen- 
ing of domestic and friendly relations, and to the form- 
ing of wise and good resolutions for the future. Let this 
not only be the beo-innino- of a new century of munici- 
pal life, but also the commencement of a new era of 
social existence — one of greater mutual kindness and 
forbearance, and of more active and wider benevolence. 
Let this day, like the running stream at whose limits evil 
spirits lose the power to follow and harrass, stand hence- 
forth a charmed barrier between us and the bad passions 
and enmities of the past. Let the young resolve to em- 
ulate the worthy traits of those who have gone before 
them — the courage, the constancy and rectitude of the 



36 

early fathers — and worthily to reproduce them on this 
later and wider stage. Let the middle-aged, refreshed by 
the shades and waters of this oasis of the years, take up 
their burden and resume their burning march with fresh 
spirit and new hopes. Let the old, in grave and kindly 
intercommunion of the past, freshen the fading lines 
of memory, and in the glow of genial intercourse warm 
the slow blood chilled by the shadows of the great 
approaching change. And finally, may we all, as we 
contemplate our beautiful City of the Dead, rising from 
the steep banks of the Nashua, terrace above terrace, 
until its marble shafts stand in clear relief against the 
western sky, recollecting how brief is the interval 
allotted to us, be incited to renewed exertions to so do 
our appointed work, that when those who come after us 
shall celebrate the second centennial anniversary of 
Fitchburg, they may see around them the trophies of 
our energy and usefulness, and may hold our names in 
affectionate and reverent remembrance. 



APPENDIX 



After the Committee of the City Council had commenced printing 
the foregoing address of Mr. Snow, the following papers connected with 
the celebration of the Centennial of 1864, came into their hands, and 
at their request, the City Council ordered them to be printed as an 
appendix. 

The address of Mr. Snow, and the poem by Geo. E. Towne, 
Esq., were delivered under Yale's Mammoth Tent, on the vacant lot of 
Walter Heywood, Esq., on Circle Street, also the religious services con- 
nected with the occasion. The address of the Hon. Alvah Crocker, 
welcoming home the sons and daughters of Fitchburg, we regret to say, 
was not preserved. The reading of the Scriptures by the Rev. Mr. 
Bullard, from the ancient Family Bible of Col. Zachery Fitch, printed 
in London in 1739, the fervent prayer by the Rev. Mr. Lincoln, both 
former pastors of the town, the presence of the Rev. Doct. Worcester, 
and the well known faces of many of our venerable citizens upon the 
platform, all combined with the happy influences of the occasion, to 
make the day forever memorable in our history. The other speeches, 
toasts, songs and poems, were delivered at the dinner table in the Town 
Hall, which contained nearly 500 guests. 

L. H. Bradford. 



A POEM. 

READ BY GEORGE E. TOWNE, ESQ., 

St tlje denteitnikl delek'ktion of ^itdbbuf^. 

JUNE 30, 1864. 



'Twas early morning, ere the lazy sun 

His usual daily circuit had begun. 

In eastern skies a narrow thread of light 

Showed day advancing on the shades of night; 

The cool air through my open window poured, — 

My next room neighbor — how the fellow snored, — 

While from a thousand feathered songsters' throats, 

Came forth as many sweet and varied notes. 

I rose from bed and dressed myself in haste, 

The glories of the opening day to taste ; 

I'd heard about 'em, and I wished to know 

If all the wondrous things I'd heard were so. 

You'll not, of course, expect me here to tell 

Just how I found it, or at length to dwell 

In praise of early rising ; 'twere as well 

The curious, in such matters, to advise 

Just once, at early dawn from bed to rise, 

And dress and go, it makes no difference where, 

So they can breathe the unwholesome morning air, 

And until sunrise shiver, gape and stare. 

My own experience — and I won't deny it — 

Convinces me that only once they'll try it 

I climbed up Roulstone and I made no stop 

Until I reached the boulder at the top. 

I saw the fiery eastern sky aglow 

With radiant loveliness, that seemed to grow 



More and more lovely yet, as sure and slow 

The coming sun dispelled the twilight gray 

And grandly ushered in another day. 

Still as the scene enraptured I surveyed, 

Within myself a hundred times I said, 

Would that at home and snug in bed I'd staid. 

My hands and ears and feet were numb with cold, 

My chattering teeth my mouth could hardly hold, 

My eyes were watery, and my glistening nose 

Ached so, I knew full well it wasn't froze. 

Vague thoughts of breakfast flitted through my mind, 

And I confess I strongly felt inclined, 

The shortest homeward route at once to find ; 

When suddenly a strange, low, rushing sound 

Fell on my ear ; I turned and looked around, 

And saw, arising from the opened ground, 

The strangest figure, in the form of man, 

That e'er was seen since first the world began. 

His dress was out of date, his figure portly, 

His face a little thin, his manner courtly. 

At the first glance, one hardly would detect 

That all about him was not quite correct ; 

But as I gazed apace my horror grew, 

Though what it was I own I hardly knew, 

So strange, unnatural, uncanny, weird, 

A man, yet not a man, the thing appeared. 

And soon I noticed, for I scanned him well, 

Though bathed in sunlight, horrible to tell, 

No sign of shadow from his figure fell, 

And though it squarely interposed between 

My vision and the charming sunrise scene, 

I saw the whole, I noted it with care, 

Rocks, trees and hills, as though he wasn't there. 

It flashed across me ; for a ghost, I knew him ; 

He puzzled me no more, I saw right through him; 

Yet still I waited in the hope to find 

Whose ghost he was, and strongly felt inclined 



To ask him, when there flashed across my mind 

An ancient legend I had sometime heard, 

And deemed, till now, all senseless and absurd. 

In seventeen sixty-four, the story ran, 

Of the then living ones, the oldest man, 

In a forgotten grave, did duly find 

The sleep to all men soon or late assigned ; 

But when above his quiet grave at last, 

A century's tidal wave had surged and passed, 

He'd burst Death's fetters — thus the tale was told, — 

And wake, the century's progress to behold. 

Now I'm not one of those who feel afraid, 

When an odd ghost or so essays a raid ; 

If they incline to walk, I've found it best 

To let no walk of theirs disturb my rest ; 

I would not be thought rash, my words I weigh, 

I understand exactly what I say, 

Women and ghosts should always have their way. 

Meanwhile his ghostship seemed prepared to make 

A few remarks, and as I had at stake 

Only my nose and ears, I thought I'd stay 

And list to what the old fellow had to say. 

I was his audience, yet I must confess, 

His words to me he did not seem to address, 

But with far gaze, and voice distinct and loud, 

He spoke as from a rostrum to a crowd ; 

He turned his back to me and faced the sun, 

And thus his dreary monologue begun : 

" The cycle is complete ; a hundred years, 

With their vast freight of boundless hopes and fears, 

Of sweet and bitter memories, love and hate, 

Of hearts made happy or left desolate, 

Of wrong, injustice, violence and fraud, 

Of quite too oft forgetfulness of God ; 

Illumined, though with feeble, flickering light, 

By some faint gleams of justice, truth and right — 

A hundred years have slowly rolled away, 



Since that (to me at least) eventful day, 

When, tired of life, I bade the world good-bye, 

And in all calmness laid me down to die. 

A hundred years, and now again I've woke, 

Called back to life by a strange voice that broke 

The spell that bound me, saying rise and see 

The wondrous progress of the century ! 

The time seems very brief to one who's slept 

All through the intervening gap, nor kept 

The slightest record of its flight, nor known 

How days to months, and months to years have grown - t 

And yet my dazzled, sleepy eyes I find, 

A century's dust quite thick enough to blind ; 

So pray have patience, while I feel my way 

Along the years, until I reach to-day ; 

As when an infant, in its earliest days, 

In toddling fashion first to walk essays, 

Nor dares from point to point direct to go, 

But creeps along, circuitous and slow, 

Clutching at chairs and tables on the way, 

Instinctively its tottering limbs to stay, 

Or as the traveller, lost in marshy ground, 

Leaps o'er the quivering earth from mound to mound, 

Halting, as each new foothold is obtained, 

To see where next some progress can be gained, 

So I, beginning life as 'twere again, 

Must grope my way across the century plain, 

Gaining new strength and hope, as year by year 

I find myself approaching towards you, here," — 

I interrupted here, and did suggest 

That for all parties 'twould I thought be best, 

If of his preface, he'd omit the rest, 

And plunge in medias res and tell us how 

Past Fitchburg might compare with Fitchburg now. 

He blandly smiled, as though it pleased him well, 

And thus his childhood's view went on to tell : 

"It is a charming valley, nestling snug 



Amid surrounding hills that seem to hug 
It closely in affectionate embrace, 
Grandly combining majesty and grace ; 
Right at our feet fair Nashua is seen, 
Half hidden by o'erhanging fringe of green, 
Here lost awhile, entirely hid from view, 
There flashing out again as good as new; 
Now rippling sweetly o'er its pebbly bed, 
The air all vocal with the music shed, 
Then hoarsely brawling, as the rushing tide 
'Tween rocks in narrowed beds is forced to glide,, 
Next from some precipice, sullen, sad and slow, 
Plunging to reach the deepened gulf below, 
Its water churned to foam as white as snow, 
While ever and anon at some deep pool, 
Scooped out by eddying currents, calm and cool, 
The waters lingering, moderate their pace, 
Then stop entire, as though they liked the place, 
Whirling and sporting with bewitching grace, 
Until a thousand dimples dent their face. 
While ever, as the gorgeous hues o'erhead 
Upon its mirrored face their radiance shed, 
See their reflection from the surface thrown, 
And each become, though borrowed, all its own. 
Upon the sloping hill sides, I behold 
Primeval forests, tangled, grand and old : 
Nature's cathedrals, through whose arches dim 
The winds forever chant their solemn hymn. 
I see no grassy slopes, no pastures fair, 
But stern, unbroken forest everywhere. 
Nor signs of life I see, save here and there 
A curling smoke-wreath rising through the air, 
Which on its upward flight, as slow it steals, 
Some dusky Indian's wigwam home reveals. 
And now the cloud before my vision lifts, 
As slow the panoramic canvas shifts, 
And as I gaze, before my very face 



A change comes o'er the spirit of the place." 

I stopped him here again ; said I, " My friend, 

I think it time this sort of thing should end. 

It's well enough, this sentimental stuff, 

But I have listened to it long enough ; 

You're prosy, stupid, tedious, dull and slow, 

And as your words monotonously flow, 

My hands and ears and feet still colder grow. 

Besides, though meritorious be your rhyme, 

You do not quite keep up with passing time, 

And while you slowly crawl from year to year, 

Whole generations come and disappear, 

Till ere at length you reach the present age, 

And juvenescent stand upon the stage, 

Another century will have passed away, 

And you as far as ever from to-day. 

'Twill never do at all, some other way 

Must be devised, so listen ghost, I pray, 

Scour out your eyes, drop that bewildered stare, 

Brush off the dust of ages, smooth your hair, 

Give motion to your limbs, your tongue keep stilly 

And grasp my hand, I'll lead you down the hill." 

I might have been more gentle, but I deemed 

It right to check him, for it really seemed 

To me a wicked waste of time, and wrong 

To listen longer to his dismal song. 

The only question was how best to stop him, 

And I but knew one way, short off to chop him; 

As sailors, when they'd stop a messmate's cackle, 

Just clap a stopper on his jawing tackle, 

.So I, when of his droning I'd be rid, 

Thought best to choke him off at once, and did ! 

And now my task begins. Inspire my pen 

Ye muses nine, — or was it eight or ten ? — 

Help me in fitting terms, to tell what most 

Of all we saw, pleased our good friend the ghost. 

Together we proceeded down the hill, 



<s 



Not, as in Mother Goose, did Jack and Jill 

Who rolled and tumbled down in grievous plight, 

Jill following crown-cracked Jack, half dead with fright; 

But soberly, upright, our way we wended, 

Until that portion of our route was ended. 

We crossed the rail road on the way, he saw 

The iron track, and asked me what 'twas for ; 

But ere the mystery I'd begun t' explain, 

I heard the bell which spoke the coming train ; 

It came in sight, with rumble, screech and roar, 

Exceeding aught I'd ever heard before ; 

But for all that I cannot say which most 

The echoes waked, the engine or the ghost. 

Fear seemed at first his thought and speech t' arrest r 

And then he yelled as though by fiends possessed, 

He tried to run, but terror held him fast, 

And so per force he saw the train go past. 

I showed the telegraph and tried to explain 

Its operation to his wondering brain. 

I told him briefly how mankind obtained 

The knowledge that the lightning could be trained 

Obediently our messages to carry 

Along that slender, mystic, message ferry, 

And Oh ! that you had seen him ope his eyes, 

In doubt, amazement, wonder and surprise, 

When I informed him that a message sent 

From east to west, across the continent 

That lies twixt oceans, thus forever parted, 

Would reach there some three hours before it started. 

We crossed the bridge ; he eyed the stream below, 

Black, foam-flecked in its sullen, ceaseless flow, 

No longer, as in ancient days, a theme 

For poets' scribbling or for artists' dream, 

No longer dancing lightly on its way, 

Its face, mirth-dimpled like a child's at play, 

No longer even free, but pent up, chained, 

Its course obstructed, and its current trained, 



As on it sped to lose itself in ocean, 

To set some tens of thousand wheels in motion ; 

He tried to speak, but only heaved a sigh 

In memory of the stream of days gone by. 

I showed the churches where good folks repair 

To worship and see what their neighbors wear ; 

I told him of the softly cushioned pews 

Where sleepy christians sit and nod and snooze, 

And then complain about the preacher's views. 

The frescoed ceilings, decorated walls, 

On which through storied panes the sunlight falls, 

Tinging with ever changing gorgeous hues, 

In turn, flooi, wainscot, column, aisle and pews, 

The organ, many voiced, whose peal so grand 

Speaks in a language all can understand ; 

The universal language ; to the ear 

And heart, however untrained, still ever clear. 

The quartette choirs, retained to sing God's praise, 

For liberal pay in operatic lays 

And vocally accompany the sermon, 

With songs in English, Latin, French or German ; 

Or possibly a chorus fills the seats, 

And there perform most wondrous vocal feats, 

And being thus of harmony bereft, 

Have for their private use, but discord left ; 

And hence the fact, that choirs so much delight 

Among themselves, to wrangle and to fight. 

The gorgeous pulpits where sleek parsons stand, 

With quires full of pointed texts at hand, 

To shoot at error, wickedness and crime, 

And rake down sins in platoons at a time. 

In short, where money, taste and skill have lent 

Their aid, to give church-goers sweet content, 

So well is pleasure with instruction blent. 

Not like the churches in the days of old, 

Bald, bare and bleak, uncarpeted and cold, 

Where stern old preachers thought they did a wrong, 

A 



IO 



In preaching sermons less than one hour long ; 

Where shivering sinners sat in wintry days 

And pondered on the errors of their ways, 

Wishing the foot-stoves placed beneath their feet 

Would radiate more perceptibly their heat ; 

And though, of course, they knew that Heaven was ; — well, 

In some respects a better place than Hell, 

And trembled when the earnest parson shouted 

A threat of endless fire to all who doubted, 

Still on their minds the thought would sometimes steal,. 

As icy shivers swept from head to heel, 

That 'twould be well, though living in the former, 

To sometimes visit winters — where 'twas warmer, 

I told him of our schools, with tender care 

Provided for the children everywhere ; 

Progressively arranged with nicest skill, 

Like stairs, to help the pupils up the hill. 

I saw an urchin and I thought I'd try 

My words by actual test to verify ; 

I wished to impress upon, and show the ghost, 

The basis of my educational boast. 

I called to him to come, " my lad ! see here ; 

I don't intend to hurt you, never fear, 

Pray, if you can, tell this old man and me 

How many planets in the sky, you see, 

And which one is the largest, and most bright ;" 

" Dry up now, I don't see it in that light;" 

Such was the answer, and I thought it best 

To let him take for granted all the rest. 

We saw the High School building, so designed, 

That scholars architecturally inclined, 

And truants fond of out-door life, might find 

That nothing outside, in the way of beauty, 

Could stand between them and their inside duty ; 

And thus we see, ot beauty or of grace 

From sill to ridge-pole, note the slightest trace ; 

We gazed awhile, then turned away, to try 



And find some pleasing shapes to suit the eye ; 

As children, when they 've taken physic, haste 

To swallow sugar to remove the taste, 

So we, on architectural sweets intent, 

Down to the Baptist Church and Town house went. 

I told him of our fearful civil war, 

Waged to defend the Union and the law ; 

This simple question, once for all, to test 

Whether majorities shall win the rest. 

I told him how our young men, true and brave, 

Cheerful went forth, the worlds best hope to save, 

And nobly suffered hardship and privation, 

And even death itself, to save a nation. 

I took him into Wallace's, and showed 

The morning papers o'er the counter strewed ; 

I begged of him to carefully peruse 

The column headed " Telegraphic !" news 

Of battles fought, and mighty victories won, 

Or lost, because the rebels would'nt run ; 

Changes of base, which every one could see 

Were not defeats, but wondrous strategy ; 

Great movements, reconnoisances in force, 

The object gained — why, we fell back, of course — 

And finally, the usual startling rumor, 

Concocted with rare skill, and rarer humor ; 

"We have in our possession information 

Not proper yet for general publication ; 

The secret has been guarded with such care, 

That few (save rebels) its possession share ; 

A movement is projected, on what day, 

How many men, or where, we shall not say ; 

But when at length they're fairly under way, 

Look out for startling news, they'll strike a blow, 

Will lay this miserable rebellion low. 

For Government has now resolved, at length, 

To prosecute the war with all its strength." 

His ghostship slowly followed down the column, 



12 



And as he read his face grew wondrous solemn ; 

You see, he drought 'twas true, — now please don't laugh,- 

How could he understand the telegraph. 

He finished it, and to the postscript turned, 

And reading, to his satisfaction learned, 

(I saw a change upon his face depicted) 

"All the above has just been contradicted." 

I showed him next the factories, and traced 

Their line along the river bank, so placed 

That not an inch of fall should run to waste. 

We visited the paper mills and saw 

Huge piles of rags, old ropes, and even straw, 

To be converted at the workman's will 

To finest paper with consummate skill ; 

We saw the slender, lithe East Indian reeds, 

Brought over ocean to supply our needs, 

Strangely manipulated, split in strands, 

And deftly smoothed for use by nimble hands. 

We saw a chair shop, wonderful to tell ; 

Where chairs are made for use, and not to sell, 

When as it flies, each minute adds one more 

To the supply of chairs on hand before. 

So strong, substantial, well made, fine and stout, 

The ghost remarked, " they never will wear out." 

We saw the process from the earliest minute, 

When first the cunning workmen did begin it. 

A log upon the ground before us lay, 

A living, growing tree but yesterday ; 

Its branches nodding to the summer breeze, 

Or shivering in the wintry blasts that freeze, 

And chanting ever with companion trees. 

They rolled it on the ways — we looked again — 

The whirling saw had cut the log in twain ; 

Again, and yet again the angry saw 

Buzzed through the log, and gorged its hungry maw, 

Until but blocks and cubes of wood were seen, 

Where once a noble, well-shaped log had been. 



l 3 



We walked right through the mill ; we made no stop ; 
We saw it from the bottom to the top ; 
We reached the end, and — judge of our surprise — 
When there we saw (we scarce believed our eyes), 
A workman driving up a dozen chairs, 
Made from the log we started with down stairs. 
I told him of the contest long time waged 
'Twixt " up-town " and " old city ;" fierce it raged, 
And bitter was the internecine strife, 
Such as is sometimes seen 'tween man and wife. 
None knew what by " old city " was intended, 
Or where " up-town " begun or where it ended; 
The whole within two stones throw, yet for years 
Full half the town was fairly by the ears. 
The railroad came ; the engine whistle blew ; 
Its echoes rung the valley through and through. 
" Where shall the depot be ? 'twould be a pity," 
Said " up-town," were it placed in the ' old-city,' " 
While from old-cityites the answer fell, 
" The depot might as well be placed in, — well, 
- We won't say where, as have it up in town, 
Such a decision never will go down." 
A hog reeve must be chosen ; who shall be 
The man to fill the office ? let us see — 
" Put Smith, the late incumbent, in again," 
" Oh, no ! he p lives now south of Newton's lane ;" 
"Well, if you don't like Smith, take Brown or Keys, 
They're both up-towners," 'tother party cries ; 
' And so we pulled and hauled, until at length 
'Twas found that thus we wasted half our strength. 
And from that moment fainter grew the blows, 
'Till the two sections ceased to meet as foes. 
Our social habits, laws and customs, next 
Formed for a short discourse, a proper text. 
I showed him how in these things we'd improved, 
And socially, just how we lived and moved. 
I told him of our festivals and balls, 



14 



Our evening visits and our morning calls. 

Our fashionable parties, where we go, 

Not for enjoyment, but our style to show, 

And generally the things we do and say, 

To keep our social natures from decay. 

Not as in olden time, when quiet neighbors 

After the day was o'er, and closed their labors, 

Would meet and sit within the cheerful glow 

Of a huge bonfire, bright enough to throw 

Weird, shapeless, shifting shadows that did fall 

Behind them, on the smoke-browned cottage wall. 

And as they sat and smoked their pipes together, 

Discussed their church, crops, politics and weather ; 

While in the chimney corner, deep and wide, 

On oaken settles placed on either side, 

Casting sheep's eyes across the roaring fire, 

Sat next door neighbour John and Ann Maria ; 

Who, as their glances met, turned rosy red, 

And wished the older ones would go to bed ; 

And when at last they did go, coyly drew 

Two chairs together, and ".he minutes flew 

Unheeded by them until late it grew ; 

Yet still they sat and talked, and idly dreamed, 

And still the smouldering embers fitful gleamed, 

And stiange to say, but one their shadows seemed; 

I told him that the laws by fashion made, 

Now, as of old, were generally obeyed ; 

That all the fashion plates were scanned with care, 

And nothing was allowed save what was there ; 

No matter how absurd, 'twas all the same, 

If but Queen fashion stamped it with her name, 

Pretty or ugly, beautiful or mean, 

It was " the sweetest thing that e'er was seen." 

Our coats are long, short, narrow, loose or wide, 

Just as the tyrant tailors may decide; 

Our boots, now square-toed, like an adze or spade, 

Once like a pick-axe at the toe were made. 



IS 



The collar threatens now our very ears, 

Anon it droops, then almost disappears. 

And so on through the list, we fain must wear 

Just what we're told to, and we never dare 

To vary from it, for our caste we lose, 

Unless Ave dress just as our tyrants choose. 

While all our protests reach this single end ; 

" 'Tis quite the way we make them now, my friend ;" 

In this the ladies set us an example, 

Their skirts, for instance, now so broad and ample, 

Have for five years — 'tis really passing strange — 

Save to grow daily larger, known no change. 

But I forbear ; for properly to speak 

Of all these things, would take at least a week ; 

Still just to impress and fasten on his mind 

What I had said to him of womankind, 

I pointed out one, fashionably dressed ; 

And closely watched his face the effect to test; 

Said he, " I see her head, pray where's the rest ?" 

But time is passing, and at length I find, 

Though to continue I may feel inclined, 

For your sake I must try and bear in mind, 

That poems, like all things on earth, should tend, 

However long delayed, towards an end. 

He listened, and I talked, until at length 

Exhausted was his patience and my strength ; 

I told him almost everything I knew, 

I finished, and his shadowy figure grew 

More and more shadowy, till dissolved from view. 

But as he faded from my sight away, 

These words in saddened tones I heard him say : 

" Farewell ! a long farewell ! I've seen and heard 

All you have shown and said, each sight, each word, 

You've shown me fairly what I waked to see, 

The wondrous progress of the century. 

And it is wonderful; my heart is filled 

With admiration, and my soul is thrilled. 



i6 



But after all — and oh ! I pray forgive 

Me when I say — again I would not live ; 

Your men no doubt are chivalrous and brave ; 

Your women, true as God to man e're gave ; 

Your countless railroads, telegraphs and mills, 

Born of your wedded intellects and wills ; 

Your churches, with their heavenward pointing spires. 

Marking afar, where burn your altar fires ; 

Your school-houses, whose plainness you deride, 

Yet studded with your brightest gems inside — 

All these proclaim a people wise and great, 

And growth in grandeur plainly indicate. 

But 'tis not home to me — all things are changed ; 

Ee'n nature's very self seems disarranged. 

Where is the humble, homely, low-browed cot 

In which was cast my early happy lot ? 

The well-curb, creaking sweep, and bucket old, 

And moss-grown when a boy, I first was told 

How to draw up the water sweet and cold. 

The rough, unpainted barn — I see it now — 

In which were kept the old gray horse and cow ; 

The kitchen, smoke-browned, yet so clean and neat, 

E'en to the well-scoured floor beneath our feet ; 

The fireplace, in whose corners deep and wide, 

We children used to sit on either side ; 

The cider-mill, the smoke-house and the sty, 

Where portly grunters in the sun did lie. 

Of all these things no trace is left to-day ; 

Long since they've passed to ruin and decay. 

My father, strong and stalwart — even when 

He bore the weight of four score years and ten, 

Who, although humble and unknown to fame, 

Among his neighbors bore an honest name; 

My mother, loving, womanly and kind, 

Who for her wayward children yet could find 

Excuses, which her tender heart inclined 

The rigor of strict justice much to soften, 



i7 



And tempered it with loving mercy often. 

My elder brother, manly, brave and true ; 

Who grew in goodness, as in years he grew ; 

My playmate sister, sharer of my toys, 

My childhood sorrows, and my childhood joys ; 

Who grave and thoughtfully far beyond her years, 

Joined me in sport, and soothed away my tears ; 

Who ruled, though younger, with a rod of love, 

Until God took her to himself above. 

My loved ones never can come back to me ; 

My childhood's home I ne'er again can see ; 

Thus, however bright to you the world may be, 

It never can again be home to me." 

His voice and form here faded quite away, 

And I — awoke, and found another day 

Had dawned, and strange as it may seem — 

All I have told you here was but a dream. 



To the Centennial Poet of 1964. 



My Dear Young Brother, — As the first in the long line of poets 
when — looking down the ages with prophetic eye, " in fine frenzy roll- 
ing " — I see, enlivening with tuneful lyres, future municipal celebrations 
of centennial anniversaries, I address you my immediate successor. 

I much regret that circumstances beyond my control, will probably 
prevent my being present to join in your festivities ; so I write to give 
you friendly greeting — to deprecate in advance your criticism, and to 
ask of you a judgment, tempered with mercy. No one knows better 

B 



i8 



than I the poverty and weakness of the feeble effort for which I here 
invoke the covering mantle of a broad and generous charity. 

It was surely an evil moment when I weakly yielded to the solici- 
tation of our centennial committee, and cons ented to become a stand- 
ing memorial of their want of judgment and good taste. 

All in vain I pleaded want of time. 

" Take it," said my tormentors. 

" But I lack poetical ability." 

" Acquire it," roared they. 

" Another more gifted can do it better. ' Poeta nascitue non fit.' " 

" But that other is not a native, and a 'centennial poet must be to 
the manor born, even if not fit,' " translated they, bellowing it after me, 
as I retired in discomfiture and utter rout. So the committee " plucked 
the apple, and I did eat." 

It is not often that lack of judgment is so far reaching in its results, 
but the blame is theirs, not mine. They might have selected — but I 
could not have written — better. 

One comforting thought is mine, and may be yours. We centennial 
poets are sure of immortality. We shall be read all along down the 
centuries. The torrents of ordinary poetical trash, which, are ever 
bursting the too weak barriers of good taste, continuously sweep in 
freshets down the gorges of life, undermining the faith of men in the 
sanity of their fellows, sweeping away their confidence in the existence, 
anywhere, of good sense, and ploughing deep, ugly furrows in the 
smooth, green sward of naturally sweet tempers, — are surely at last, 
all, or nearly all, lost in the great ocean of oblivion. We centennial 
fellows, alone, are the poetical Plurii, whose lucubrative outpourings 
flow on forever. 

Emerging into publicity from the sweet, placid pools of calm 
thought, away up in the dizzy heights of ordinarily inaccessible brain 
levels, they thunder down the narrow gorges of local interest, broken, 
perchance, but never stayed by the rocks and quicksands of met- 
rical difficulties, and with grand majestic sweep, "flow on and ever," 
between smiling;, flowery banks of local popular favor. 

We may be pigeon-holed, book-shelved, even temporarily forgotten ; 
fire may burn, children may tear, and continual reference thumb us 
seemingly out of print, yet in hiding places innumerable, under corner 



'9 

stones, in dusty garrets and municipal archives, we still live ; and as the 
centuries go by achitectural demolition and archaeological delving give 
us resurrection from the sleep of eyes. 

This may be the immortality of circumstance, and not of merit, but 
it is still immortality; and as it is certainly my only chance — and quite 
likely yours as well — let us " take the goods the gods send us," and be 
thankful. 

In conclusion, I bespeak your gratitude. I have pitched a key note 
low down in the poetical gamut. I know too well that I have only 
grovelled. Thank me, for I have thus given you the best opportunity 
in my power to do better. Had I soared to Empyrian heights, the 
result of comparison might have brought disappointment to your audi- 
ence, and mortification to yourself. See to it, then, that the self-abre- 
gation of one — who thus grandly immolates himself to give to his 
successors a better chance — receives the homage it deserves. 

Send me a copy of your poem to the address, which, about that time 

I will try and rap out ; and meanwhile, accept for use, and transmission 

in turn to your successor, the poet's pen, now no longer mine ; and 

believe me I am — or rather I shall be as soon as you are in existence — 

Your predecessor, and most 

Obedient servant, 

George E. Towne. 



ADDRESSES AND POEMS. 



The County of Worcester — " To its enterprise and liberal spirit in all 
public works we are largely indebted for the full measure of prosperity 
with which we have been favored." 

The sentiment to the County of Worcester having been announced, 
the President said he saw a gentleman present, who, although he could 
not claim to be a native of the town, had come among them for his 
better-half, and by his long and familiar acquaintance with every part of 
the County, had a right to speak in her behalf, and he would therefore 
call upon the Hon. Emory Washburn to respond to the sentiment. 



REMARKS BY HON. EMORY WASHBURN, OF CAMBRIDGE, MASS. 

Mr. Washburn said that he should have felt himself to be an intruder 
into this family gathering, although kindly invited by the committee to 
be present, from the circumstance that, without his fault, he had to 
trace his birth to another locality, if he had not endeavored to correct 
the mistake as soon as he was able, by seeking for one who had been 
born here, to fill the most important place in his domestic establishment ; 
so that if he could not himself, lay claim to a filial relation with the 
good town of Fitchburg, his children could ; and he might perhaps 
hope to be accepted as their representative on this occasion. He was 
quite sure that when the next centennial of the town should be celebra- 
ted, his posterity, should any of them remain, would thank his memory 
for having, by such a wise selection, enabled them to claim descent from 
a spot so honored and so honorable in its history. 

The President, however, had generously relieved him from his em- 
barrassment in this respect, by asking him to speak for the County of 
Worcester, within which it had been his good fortune to be born. And 
yet, proud as he was of his native County, what could he say of her, 
with the exception of extent and degree only, that he might not with 
justice say of the spot where they were then assembled. If he would 
speak of the intelligence and cultivation of her people, the good order 
which pervaded her borders, and the social refinement which is every- 
where to be met with, they had certainly witnessed all these in the 
gathering of to-day, and the exercises to which they had been listening. 
Where could they hope to find more scholarly taste, appropriateness of 
thought or language, more sparkling wit or true eloquence than they 
had enjoyed in the addresses and poems which had graced and dignified 
the occasion ? And if he might, indeed, speak for this noble County, 
he might congratulate her upon the manner in which so many of her 
citizens had maintained their claim to consideration on this, the hun- 
dredth anniversary of their corporate existence. 

The sentiment to which he was to respond, made distinct allusion to 
the enterprise and liberal spirit of the people of the County, and while 
he was ready to accord the full share of veneration and respect which 
was due to her from a son, he was irresistibly led, as he looked around 
upon the scenes which here met his eye, to cast his thoughts backward 
over the past and to ask where there could be found more decided 



21 



marks of enterprise and liberal spirit than was witnessed here ? How 
was it that a community like this had thus grown and prospered ? With- 
in the period of the life of a single individual, its population had nearly 
doubled twice and one-half, while its wealth had increased in a still 
greater ratio. If they looked for the cause of all this, it would not be 
found in the soil or the climate, or in any extrinsic aid from abroad in 
the form of special accessions of skill or capital ; but it was to be traced 
to what was inherent within itself. Like the County of which it formed 
,a part, its prosperity might be traced to the principle of well directed 
skill and industry in every department of labor, which had built up its 
workshops, and given honest and honorable employment to its sons. 
Here was the secret of the success which they witnessed. They had 
worked out their own independence, and the marks were before them 
in the abodes of comfort and luxury which were clustered along this 
valley. 

It was a theme he could only touch upon in the brief moments al- 
lowed him while occupying the place which other gentlemen were so 
much better prepared to fill. And yet he could not wholly pass it 
over on an occasion like that on which they were assembled. 

The influence of this principle of free labor would be found to reach 
altogether further than the mere thrift and prosperity of a single town 
or county. It entered into the very struggle in which the country 
itself was then involved, and the people had more at stake to maintain 
its rights than many had been willing to acknowledge. 

If they included within this principle the inventive brain and mechanic 
skill which distinguish the industrial classes of the north, there was in 
the results of labor in the two sections, such a contrast that no one 
could fail to perceive it. But in nothing was the distinction more 
marked than in the different modes by which the labor of one or the 
other had been performed. In the one, it had been carried on by the 
means of a vast human machine, costly, wasteful and unprofitable, re- 
quiring constant renewal, and worked only at the expense of human 
suffering and degradation. In the other, it was the cheerful combina- 
tion of ingenious skill, and the willing agencies of nature, whose ener- 
gies never tire, and whose resources are never exhausted. The Southern 
planter had heretofore wrung his profits from the reluctant toil and 
services of the slave, that he, himself, might live in indolence and ease, 



while here the waters of this little river, in their play, are made to do 
the work of a thousand hands, while they scatter on every side wealth, 
comfort and personal independence. Nor had this contrast been over- 
looked or unnoticed by those who control the public opinion of the 
South. A jealousy of this predominance of free labor, in contrast with 
their own, had been a ready instrument in the hands of bad men for 
creating discord and alienation of one part of the nation against the 
other. Nor was this the only source of antipathy on the part of the 
leaders of the South against the institutions of the North. While with 
the one, the fruits of labor were monopolized into the hands of a few — 
a slave oligarchy; with the other, its rewards were open to all, and 
shared by all, nor were the avenues to success closed to any one. 
There had, therefore, grown up from the very nature of those relations, 
an antagonism against the free institutions of the North which had cul- 
minated at last in open war. Nor was it too much to say, that the war 
in which the country was then engaged, was to settle whether those 
institutions, including that of free labor, should live with all their bless- 
ings, or be crushed beneath the heel of the slaveholder. 

In what free labor had achieved, as well as in this struggle to main- 
tain its rights, Fitchburg had done her full share. Nor could any one 
reasonably doubt what was to be its final results. If over that region 
now desolated by war, other Fitchburgs could be built up, and industry 
and the arts gather the freemen of the land into houses like these, to 
work out for themselves the personal independence which is here en- 
joyed, the burden and disgrace to which our country had so long 
been subjected would be a thing which will live only in the memory of 
the past. The events which they were then witnessing in the progress 
of this war, were an earnest that the day could not long be delayed. 
Long ere the recurrence of this centennial should be celebrated, the last 
vestige, as he believed, of that which had separated and distracted a 
common country, would be blotted out forever. And he would close 
these hasty and unpremeditated remarks by offering as a sentiment — 

The next Centennial Anniversary of Fitchburg — May it find her still 
rejoicing in her career of prosperity, in the midst of a nation of freemen, 
without one stripe obliterated, or one star blotted out from the glorious 
old Flag of the Union. 



23 



LETTER FROM S. M. WORCESTER, U.D. 

Salem, July 23, 1S64. 
J. T. Farwell — 

Dear Sir — I send the accompanying outline of my remarks. I have 
appended a note, which I hope the committee will cheerfully insert. I 
think that the truth of history will be promoted, and that a point of so 
much importance in the " controversy" should be rightly presented. 

I did not make the speech which I had thought of making before I 
received a notice of the " sentiment " by which I was called up. And 
I was so anxious to be brief, that I omitted some things which I after- 
wards much regretted. What I send is but little worthy of publication, 
and the committee have my leave to omit the whole. 

You are aware, I suppose, that I was but a year old when my father 
left Fitchburg. While an officer of Amherst College I first visited my 
native place, and with a deep interest went to the house where I was 
born. Repeatedly since I have passed in sight of it from the cars. 
One Sabbath, some fifteen years ago, I preached in the place. 

I was greatly pleased with the exercises of the celebration, and desire 
to express my grateful acknowledgments for the attentions of the com- 
mittee of arrangements. 

Very cordially, 

S. M. Worcester. 

The Clergy — " They can win no higher praise, than that by their be- 
havior in their sacred office they have entitled themselves to the affec- 
tionate reverence in which they were held One Hundred Years ago." 

REMARKS OF REV. S. M. WORCESTER, D.D., OF SALEM, MASS. 

Mr. Chairman, I have often said that if I had not been born in 
Fitchburg it would have saved me many words. " You were born in 
Salem, Mr. Worcester," says one. " No, sir." " Where were you 
born?" " In Fitchburg." "Fitchburg? was your father ever settled 
in Fitchburg ?" " Yes, sir, he had his first settlement there, about five 
years before he came to Salem." Formerly I sometimes had to tell 
where Fitchburg is. And hundreds of times, I may say, I have had 
to relate more or less the history ot my father's ministry in this place. 
Not seldom have I been obliged to go into the details of the whole 



24 



Fitchburg controversy, by which this town became far more extensively 
known, than it would otherwise have been. 

I was once informed by the Chairman that when the Fitchburg Rail- 
road was undertaken, a member of a committee of the Legislature, 
with a very significant look and voice, inquired — " Crocker, where is 
Fitchburg .?" The enquiry was very gladly answered, as it gave Mr. 
Crocker just the opportunity he wanted to present some very important 
facts for his purpose. But I need not say that more than sixty years 
ago, and forty years before the Railroad was commenced, Fitchburg 
was widely known in the land, by the great conflict here in regard to 
the respective rights of churches and towns, or parishes. From my 
honored father's part in that conflict, he more than laid the foundations 
of his great pre-eminence in all matters pertaining to the principles and 
usages of our New England Congregationalism.* 

And now, sir, in responding more directly to the sentiment which has 
just been announced, I hope that I may be pardoned, if as a son, I 
speak of that father. It has been, I will not say my pride, for I do not 
like the term, but my grateful satisfaction to know, that while he was 
the minister here, he entitled himself to " the affectionate reverence in 
which the clergy were held one hundred years ago." And that he was 
held in such reverence by the most, I am certain — if I may not say, by 
all the people of the town. 

* For a full account of the memorable ecclesiastical controversy in Fitchburg, see 
" The Life and Labors of Rev. Samuel Worcester, D. D. By his Son." And by permis- 
sion of the Publishing Committee, it is added, that some errors, materially affecting the 
points at issue, have found their way, doubtless by an oversight, into the sketch of the 
History of Fitchburg, published a few years since, and which has been very highly 
commended. For instance, it is said in regard to Dr. Worcester's settlement, that the 
town took the lead in the " call," and in fact gave it, the Church concurring. But a careful 
examination of the records of the town, and those of the church, will show that this is a 
mistake. Meetings of the church and of the town had been warned to be held on the 
same day. The church first voted to invite a Mr. Noyes to become their pastor. The 
town voted against concurrence with the church ; but, by vote of 43 to 24, signified their 
•' willingness to settle Mr. Samuel Worcester." During a brief adjournment ot the 
town meeting, the church voted to give a *' call " to Mr. W., agreeably to the preference 
of the town. Their vote was communicated, at the meeting of the town, held by ad- 
journment; thereupon the town, in a formal manner, voted to concur with the church in 
extending an invitation of settlement to Mr. Worcester. Thus the title of the church to 
precedence, in calling the pastor, was distinctly recognized, according to ancient and 
still accredited usage. And the same precedence in proceedings for the dismissal of the 
pastor was afterwards recognized, but not without a severe struggle. 



2 S 

I had the privilege, some years since, of hearing from those who had 
been his parishioners, the most delightful testimony on this point. Those 
who were children urfder his pastoral care, well remembered how he 
used to lay his hand upon their heads in his gentleness and mild dignity, 
and with what a pleasant and endearing smile he spoke to them, or ad- 
dressed them in the family, by the wayside, in the school, or in the 
sanctuary. As of an early minister of Rowley, it might also have been 
said of him, that he was a tree of knowledge l.den with fruit, which the 
children could reach. 

About the time of his dismission in August, iSc2, a messenger from 
Salem came to Fitchburg. As he rode into town he met a man of good 
appearance whom he stopped for some enquiries. " Do you know Mr. 
Worcester, sir? the minister; we want a minister for the Tabernacle in 
Salem. How would he do for us ?" " Why," said the respondent, 
"I don't like the doctrine of Mr.' Worcester. But he is a man of 
talents, a good scholar, and a gentleman. And if you like his doctrine 
you will like him. You can't do any better, if you like his doctrine. 
But /don't" The answer was all that was desired. 

It was my father's wish to leave Fitchburg, just as soon as he per- 
ceived an organized opposition to his ministry. But clerical brethren, 
and other persons whose judgment he felt bound to respect, advised 
him to remain. Friends here clung 10 him most firmly. Some leading 
men of the parish, who did not agree with him in doctrine, dici not 
hesitate openly to denounce the proceedings of his adversaries, by 
which the town would be deprived, it was said, of a minister, whose 
equal in a successor they could not expect to find ; and whose interest 
in the young, and in all classes, was so promotive of the intelligence, 
industry, enterprise, good morals, and general respectability of the in- 
habitants. He made his mark here, with an enduring impression, as 
much certainly as any other minister has since made. When he deliv 
ered his farewell to the chuich and town, there could not have been, as 
I have heard, a single person of the crowded assembly who was not 
moved to tears. 

Mr. Chairman, we do not realize how much Massachusetts, and how 
much all New England owes to the clergy. Why, sir, of the more 
than seventy ministers of the first generation, and when the population 
could not have exceeded twenty thousand — much the largest part were 

C 



26 

educated at Cambridge, in the father-land. Not one, I think, was with- 
out the advantages of liberal culture. For talents, learning, and worth, 
they have not been surpassed in any generation since. Justly indeed 
weie they held in u affectionate reverence." 

In truth, however, it may be said, that from the beginning of our his- 
tory, the clergy of our commonwealth have been men, who, as a class, 
might challenge respect from all in the land, or the world, for their high 
character, their support of educational and philanthropic institutions, 
and their exertions for the liberties, the material prosperity, the progres- 
sive improvement and happiness of their fellow men. I mourn that 
there are exceptions, and that there is less disposition than in former 
days, to hold the clergy in esteem and honor. But I believe that there 
is no order of men more worthy than the clergy of our Massachusetts, 
and of other loyal states. 

However this may be, I pray God that the ministers of Fitchburg, in 
all time to come, may all of them be men, who, by their character and 
influence, will remind every intelligent person of the words of the sweet 
bard of Olney : — 

I say the pulpit (in the sober use 

Of its legitimate peculiar powers), 

Must stand acknowledged while the world shall' stand, 

The Ecost important and effectual guard, 

Support and ornament of virtue's cause. 

I have never been much of an inhabitant here, although as much a 
native as any of you. But I have felt to-day, as if I had begun to 
have the feelings of an inhabitant. And let me assure you, that my 
heart's fervent prayer is, that the future of Fitchburg may be all which 
the best Christians, the best patriots, and the best men, can reasonably 
desire. 



2 7 

AN ADVENTURE 



BY MRS. CAROLINE A. MASON. 



Walking down Main street but the other day, 

I met a stranger clad in homespun gray. 

A queer old wight he was, and strange to see, 

In small-clothes drest, with buckles at the knee. 

His calves, well-fashioned, he displayed with pride, 

His cue, tight-twisted, with fresh ribbons tied, 

Hung down his back; and round his ample chest, — 

Ye gods ! was that intended for a vest ? 

The color buff, bespangled o'er with green ! 

Was ever such an odd old codger seen ? 

I rubbed my eyes if I were yet awake, 

When lo ! the stranger neared my side and spake : 

" What place is this ?" quoth he, with visage grim, 

I checked a smile, and courteous answered him : 

" You are a stranger here, then, I infer ; 

This place is Fitchburg, at your service sir." 

" Fitchburg ! that beats the Dutch! — I want to know 

If this is Fitchburg! you are joking, though; 

I knew the good old place before your day ; 

Fitchburg, forsooth ! you're quizzing me, I say," 

" Nay, my good friend," I quickly answered, "nay, 

This place is Fitchburg ; look you ! don't you see 

We're passing Stiles'? "What is Stiles to me?" 

The stranger growled. " give over with your jokes." 

I laughed outright ; " Why, don't your women-folks 

Wear bonnets, caps and ribbons, feathers, cloaks ? 

If so, they've heard of Stiles if you have not." 

His stony visage softened not one jot ; 

Twas plain he thought me wholly in the wrong. 

I deigned no more and quicker walked along, 

Hoping my tiresome friend the hint would take 

And his own way, for courtesy's sweet sake ; — 



28 



He only followed closer in my wake. 

At length he ran against a lamp-post. " Ho ! 

What's this ?" he shouted, " I should like to know, — 

Pitching into an honest fellow so ?" 

" That is a lamp-post," I observed, " They light 

The gas up regularly every night, 

Unless the moon is shining pretty bright." 

" The gas ?" he muttered, " what may that be, pray ?" 

Then quick espying, just across the way, 

An ample building looming dark and gray 

Against the sky, " Is that a jail ?" he said, 

Slow turning to'ard it his capacious head. 

" A jail ?" I echoed, " That's the Depot, sir ; 

Why, don't you hear the engine whiz and whir ? 

And see ! the cars are coming ; pray beware; 

You'll surely get run over, standing there!" 

Just then the engine gave a mighty puff, 

The cars came thundering by, and sure enough, 

But for a leap half frantic as they passed, 

That hour had surely been our hero's last. 

He gazed half petrified ; great drops of sweat 

Rolled dovn his pallid cheeks, his huge brows met 

In wild contortion o'er his phrenzied eyes, 

He stood the embodiment of blank surprise. 

" Thunder and guns!" he gasped ; " By Jericho ! 

What do you call those screeching monsters, though ? 

My stars, at what a tearing rate they go ! 

How very odd it seems ! Why, in my day 

They took it easy in a one-hoss-shay, 

And that, to my mind, was the better way." 

A sudden light came flashing on me here ! 
" Ah," thought I to myself, "'tis very clear, 
This strange, unique, conservative old wight 
Belongs to generations vanished quite ; 
And now comes back, in some mysterious way, 



2Q 



To visit haunts familiar in his day, 

And rinds queer doings going on in town, 

And things in general turned quite upside down." 

Just at this point, my cogitations o'er, 

I saw the stranger turning to explore 

The great Stone Factory. " What's that ?" he asked. 

" The Cotton Mill," I answered, " where is tasked 

One single hand to do the work that erst 

A hundred hands with ceaseless labor cursed 

Pray, enter, friend ; I doubt not you will see 

Much that will move your curiosity." 

I said, and entered; close behind me pressed, 

With both hands on his ears, the stranger-guest. 

"Why, what, the mischief! what is all this din ?" 

Exclaimed the astonished wight, now fairly in. 

" Don't be alarmed," I said; " machinery 

Is always noisy, more or less, you see." 

" Machinery," he cried, " where are the reels, 

The cards and spindles and the busy wheels 

They used in my day ? Here's a pretty fuss ! 

What upon earth they do in such a muss 

Is past my comprehension, such as 'tis : — 

Crash ! splutter ! bang ! Creation, what a whiz !" 

" Be easy friend," I answered with a laugh, 

( f Why bless your ears ! you haven't heard the half! 

Call this commotion ? Nay, it don't begin 

To bear comparison, in point of din, 

With what is coming if you'll but agree 

Another flight of stairs to follow me." 

" Now, then," replied the stranger, " spare my brain; 

You don't catch me in such a hurl again. 

Let's to the street ; I am a quiet man, 

And much prefer my good old mother's plan 

To all this flurry. I remember well 

The music of her spindle as it fell 

In happy murmurs all the summer day, 

When I, a rosy urchin, loved to play 



3° 



About the sanded floor her knee beside ; 
I used to listen with a sort of pride, 
For well I knew in time a bran new suit 
Would grace my father and myself to boot, 
In payment for her care. Oh, happy days 
Of simple toil and good old-fashioned ways !" 

The stranger paused and dropped some natural tears 

Above the grave of those departed years, 

Then rousing, asked me as we gained the street, 

" What is that building near us, large and neat ?" 

" That's one of our hotels, sir," I replied ; 

" Yonder's another." " You are well supplied," 

He answered : " In my day a tavern stand 

Was quite a rarity." He raised his hand 

To where against the sky our tall church spires 

Flashed in the sunlit air like molten fires ! 

" Plenty of meeting-houses here," he said ; 

" All different creeds ?" I sadly bowed my head : 

l> Ay, friend, all different. Think you we shall see 

Ever a time when Christians shall agree, — 

Foregoing tithes of anise, cummin, mint, 

To follow Christ and serve Him without stint ?" 

He paused, — that relic of an ancient time, — 

And raised his finger with a glance sublime. 

" Not here, not here," he said, " is perfect day, 

But there all darkness shall be rolled away." 

Twas all he said, 'twas all that he could say. 

We walked on silent. Suddenly his eye 

Espied a placard as we sauntered by. 

His leathern spectacles he slowly drew 

From his huge pocket, spelt a word or two, 

(The type to him, you see was strange and new,) 

Then started back, blank wonder and surprise 

Mingling incredulous in his asking eyes. 

•' ' A call for volunteers !' — what means that, pray ? 



3* 



I thought they got through fighting in my day. 

Another muss with England, I suppose; 

Hang her! she's always poking in her nose 

Just when she isn't wanted ! What's up now ? 

Has old King George kicked up another row ? 

But bless me ! I forgot ! He must be dead 

Long years ago ; who's reigning in his stead ?" 

" Good Queen Victoria," I replied, — amused, 

Spite of myself, to hear John Bull abused, 

Yet wishing, as was natural, to acquit 

The gracious Queen from any share in it. 

" Good Queen Victoria; but my ancient friend, — 

I beg your pardon, — all that's at an end. 

We conquered England, you remember ? well, 

She let our folks alone for quite a spell ; 

In eighteen twelve we had a little fuss, 

But since, she's kept her hands quite off of us. 

It doesn't pay, you see ! but now and then 

She tries to dip her fingers in again 

And gets them burnt; and so I calculate. 

In time she'll learn her lesson ; we can wait." 

" That's so," replied the stranger, " but do tell 

What's in the wind ? as well as I could spell 

That notice yonder, it read something so : 

' A call for Volunteers' — who is the Foe ? 

And what's the quarrel ?" " Stranger," I replied, 

" The Southern States are seeking to divide 

This blessed Union which they all abhor 

And so they've plunged us into civil war." 

" War, civil war!" he shrieked, " It cannot be! 

What ! brothers of one common family ? — 

Sons of the sires who stood up, side by side, 

Where Stark and Allen fought, where Warren died !" 

His stout frame shook, and o'er his furrowed cheek 

Tears wrote the anguish words could never speak ! 

" 'Tis even so" I said ; " They spared the root, 

In your time, friend ; we eat the bitter fruit !" 



3 2 



"What mean you ?" quoth he. " This .•" I stern replied 

" When Slavery triumphed, Freedom, Union died. 

The cursed hydra ! ah, friend, in your day 

You might have plucked the blasted thing away, 

At one stout wrench ; you only, here and there, 

Hacked it a little, mouthed a muttered prayer 

That nothing bad might come of it at last; — 

You see the issue !" 

" What is past is past," 
The stranger moaned, " but God forgive us all ! 
That such a fearful reckoning should befall 
Our children's children! Verily, God is just ; 
I do repent me in the very dust ! 
But pity me, and tell me, if you can, 
That out of this unhallowed wrath of man, 
God yet brings praise to His most holy name, 
Since, by this fiery baptism of flame, 
The land at length is purged of its dark shame.'' 
" Nay, nay, not yet," I answered, " All too deep 
This cursed evil, for a breath to sweep 
From out its strong foundations, though that breath 
Be the Sirocco, sweeping to hot death 
A host of- braves the hissing shell beneath, 
Or fiery shot, or cannon's smoky wreath ! 
And yet — heaven send our hopes be not in vain. — 
From out these fearful throes of mortal pain 
God grant the nation may be born again." 
A deep " God grant it !" and a low " Amen !" 
Burst from the stranger's lips — and then we talked, 
In sobered, softened accents as we walked, 
Of all the changes Time had wrought since he, 
A strong, hale man, had roved in company 
With those he loved, these streams and hills beside; — 
" I shouldn't know the dear old place, " he cried. 
" What with your town-house and your churches tall, 
Your crowded buildings, school-houses and all, 



33 



I'm clean turned upside down; — and then, and then, 
Such monstrous women ! and such bearded men !" 
" As for the women" I replied, " we shine 
In borrowed feathers — alias crinoline ; 
The men — well, they've a notion. I suppose, 
A man is handsomer the less he shows 
Of his own doubtful phiz, and so he grows 
Moustache and beard and what-not ! To be plain, 
Men have their weaknesses ; they are quite as vain 
As any of us women, I maintain." 

There was no answering such an argument, 

The stranger offered none, and on we went 

Until we reached the Cemetery gate 

And entered ; Said the stranger, " Soon or late 

We all shall enter here ; — oh, blessed fate !" 

He read a name or two, then sadly said, 

"All strangers, all ! — -the Living and the Dead! 

What do I here ?" I turned to answer him ; — 

Lo, he had vanished. Every thing grew dim 

Around, beneath, above me ; I awoke, 

And found myself, — dear reader, 'tis no joke — 

Sitting by my own fireside. Husband spoke : 

" My dear, you've had a comfortable nap ; 

But see, your book has fallen from your lap ; 

Pussy is playing tricks with your crochet, 

And things are having mostly their own way." 

A mild rebuke. I took it whence 'twas sent, 

Put things " to rights," then, for a punishment, 

Inflicted on him my uncanny dream ; 

Would you believe it ? — strange as it may seem, — 

Before I finished he was napping, too ; 

And sure as I am living — so are you. 



Jud^e Chapin's speech was in response to a sentiment complimen- 
tary to the Heart of the Commonwealth, as follows : 



J) 



34 



JUDGE CHAPIN'S SPEECH 

I have been in doubt most of the day as to my right to be here, with 
a sort of uncomfortable impression that I have been occupying a seat 
which belonged to somebody else. I was not born in Fitchburg. 1 
was not even born in the north part of Worcester County. You must 
bear in mind, however, that it was not my fault that I did not have the 
choice of my birthplace, for if I had, I might as soon have been born 
in Fitchburg as any other place in the County. I did not marry a wife 
in Fitchburg, a fact for which no one is in fault that I am aware of. I 
did not settle here as a lawyer, for the fame of Torrey & Wood, and 
the various other legal luminaries in this vicinity was enough to threaten 
any limb of the law with starvation if he should have attempted it at 
the time when I commenced the practice of the law. Why, then, am I 
hert ? Until the sentiment to which I am to respond was handed to 
me upon the platform, I supposed that I came here merely to see how 
you managed centennial celebrations in the north part of the County. 

I know how such things are done in the south part of the County. 
I had no sooner taken my seat in the cars than I found that the modus 
operandi was very nearly the same in both sections of the County. As- 
friends met from various sections, on their way to this municipal reunion,. 
the greetings were earnest and heartfelt. There was the grasping of 
the hands, the kind words of welcome, the kiss upon the lips, which,- 
by the way, was confined to the ladies, and in this respect probably 
differed trom centennial greetings in the south part of the County, and 
through the whole of this joyful occasion things have been managed so 
pleasantly and naturally that it has seemed to me that I have been in 
the midst of those whom I have always known and loved. 

But I am asked to respond for Worcester. Have you any doubt of 
the interest of the city of Worcester in the town of Fitchburg ? Haven't 
we become bound to each other by bands of iron ? Haven't we given 
you the privilege of having a jail and a jailor, just as much as ourselves ? 
Haven't we been chasing you to Boston and elsewhere, winter after 
winter, zealously as a lover folluws his sweetheart, when she threatens to 
break her connecion with him? Haven't our mutual affections at last 
resulted in a compromise which promises to keep the good old County 
intact and unbroken, with the town^of Fitchburg one of the brightest 



35 

jewels in her coronet ? I sincerely hope and believe that it is so, and 
while I remain Judge of the Probate Court, 1 trust that I shall have 
jurisdiction of the settlement of the estates of all of you who shall have 
occasion for my services. 

But brevity is the order of the day, and hard though it be, I must 
close. The day has been to me one of unalloyed enjoyment. As I 
have looked upon the beaming countenances, and watched the earnest 
greetings of the friends who have gathered here. I have known the 
feelings of their hearts, and have felt the influence ot the friendly atmos- 
phere which has surrounded me. I have listened with deep pleasure to 
the beautiful address of my friend, the orator, and have followed with 
wrapt attention the happy dream-like effusions of the poet and poetess 
of the occasion. If they will excuse me, I will take the libeity to add 
to them a single appendix : 

We've seen them iu your thrilling dreams, 
These fruitful hills and flowing streams, 
And listened with a half-drawn sigh 
To mtlodies of days gone by. 

But now there soundeth loud and clear 
A voice we must not fail to hear, 
There pomteth with unerring hand, 
An augel to the stern command, — 

The past must bury up its dead, 
The future comes with earnest tread, 
It crowds each moment of to day, 
And drives the cherished past away. 



RESPONSE BY HON. STEPHEN T. FARWELL, OF CAMBRIDGE, A NATIVE OF 

FITCHBURG. 

How joyfully the pilgrim greets the home that gave him birth, 
To him in life's young morning the sunny spot of earth, 
As from his lengthened wanderings, his toils and traveis o'er, 
He enters the old homestead to wander never more. 



x6 



Familiar voices welcome him, and loving arms embrace ; 
Light beams from every dewy eye and joy in every face; 
Yet on this gladsome picture there falls a deepening shade, 
As memory notes the changes the flight of time has made. 

Alas! among our households of few can it be said — 
The loved ones all are living and none's among the dead ; — 
The golden chain unbroken, no missing link is there; 
Around the dear old hearthstone there is, no vacant chair. 

For change, decay and dying, we cannot but discern 
On all things earthly written, whichever way we turn ; 
The household may continue, the church, the town, the state, 
But the members all are mortal, and missing soon or late. 

To-day, we who aforetime to make our homes elsewhere, 

Left these pleasant hills and valleys where first we breathed the air, 

Come back to clear old Fitchburg, the mother of us all. 

As true and loving children responsive to her call. 

And some of us are thinking — at least one is, I know — 
How few had built their homesteads here one hundred years ago. 
Along the river's margin the dwellings might be seen 
Like the visits of the angels, few and far between. 

Few then had thought the Nashua gave-promise of much good — 
It might do to turn a gristmill to grind the people food, 
But would bring them heavy burden in taxes raised to pay 
The cost of numerous bridges by her freshets swept away. 

That in the noisy waterfalls and silent moving stream 
Lay her future growth and riches, they did not even dream ; 
But facts spoiled all their logic as facts have done before, 
With the wheel and spindles' music soon heard along the shore. 



37 



Won by their swelling cadence the day of railroads came; 
And now our town's a city in every thing but name. 
For much of this later increase it is but truth to say 
We are thankfully indebted to our President of the day. 

The hundred years ended, as history doth recite. 

Began with the great struggle of our fatheis for the right, 

And the record shows that Fitchburg with heart and purse and hand 

Did her full share in driving its assailants from the land. 

In the present greater conflict she has given to the strife 
Her heart's best, choicest treasures to save the nation's life, 
Bv traitor hands imperiled, who in the madness of the hour, 
Would blot it out forever — it they but had the power. 

Shall Slavery be triumphant when the mighty struggle ends, 
And Liberty in her coffin by the weakness of her friends ? 
Forbid it, heavenly Father, and give us in thy might 
Peace that to all brings freedom and victory to the right. 

And when our childrens' children the next centennial day 
Come back to our good mother, the fealty to pay, 
May they find a thriving people, prosperous on every hand, 
And Union, peace and plenty through all the goodly land. 

Now we give her kindly greeting, and right good hearty cheer 
On rounding out so nobly her first one hundred year ; 
May other centuries follow, each better than the past, 
Until earth's drama ended, the curtain falls at last. 



The Medical Profession — " The people of Fitchburg are indebted to 
their forbearance that they are alive to celebrate their centennial." 

REMARKS BY THOMAS R. BOUTELLE, M. D., OF FITCHBURG. 

Mr. President — In response to the sentiment just read, so flattering 
to our fraternity, I will forbear wearying your patience by much talking, 
and only try to give some facts in relation to the older physicians in this 



3§ 

town. In 1772 or '73 Dr. Thaddeus McCarty moved into this place, a 
young man, and the first physician who resided here. He was the son 
of the Rev. Thaddeus McCarty, of Worcester, married the daughter o 
Thomas Cowdin, Esq., the proprietor of the noted " Cowdin Tavern,' 
which 'stood where the^ American House now stands. He was a man of 
good education, and reputed to have been skilful in his profession. 
This opinion is strengthened by the fact that out of about five hundred 
cases of inoculated small pox treated by him and his associate, Dr. 
Israel Atherton, of Lancaster, in their hospital in this town, only five 
died. For this marked success, and for his incessant labors to alleviate 
the sufferings of his patients in this loathsome disease, and to allay the 
fears of those who were well, we are informed that the people showed 
their appreciation of his services by propagating a report that he or his 
friends introduced the disease to give him a good business. So long as 
he remained here he had great influence in public affairs. He removed 
to Worcester in 1781. About 1782 he was succeeded in this place by 
Dr. Peter Snow, who lived for a number of years in a house, known as 
the Gen. Reed house, on a spot now covered by this Town House. Dr. 
Snow was highly respected, both as physician and citizen; he lived to a 
good old age, and died in the harness in 1824, leaving a family of four 
sons, the oldest, Peter Stearns Snow, and the youngest, Charles, he left 
practicing in the field he had so long and so honorably occupied. The 
younger of the two soon moved to Alabama and went into other busi- 
ness; the elder still remains with us, having retired from the labors of 
his profession years ago. His son is our orator to-day. Before Dr. 
Snow came here Dr. Jonas Marshall settled in the easterly part of the 
town, on the farm now occupied by his grandson, Mr. Abel Marshall # 
The first notice I find of Dr. M. is in 1785, when he was chosen a del- 
egate to attend a Convention to take measures to procure a division of 
the County. He continued to practice occasionally, and died at an 
advanced age. A grandson of his, Jonas A. Marshall, M. D., my 
friend and brother, has been a practicing physician here during a space 
of forty years, is still one of us, and may he long remain so. He was 
elected Town Clerk for twenty-four successive years. Associated with 
him was Otis Abercrombie, M. D., under the firm of Marshall & Aber- 
crombie. They were held in high estimation. Dr. A. left the town and 
practice on account of impaired health about 1836 or '37, and died in 



39 

Lunenburg much lamented. In 1830, Charles VV. Wilder, M, D., 
moved into this town from Leominster, where he had lived two or three 
years, having practiced a number of years previously in Templeton, and 
continued here as a physician until 1S33, when, on account ot family 
relations, he moved to Leominster, changing places with your humble 
servant, who has been attending to the duties of' his calling, more or 
less thirty-one years. Dr. W. was a man of great energy of character, 
a strong advocate of temperance, and highly respected, both as a phy- 
sician and as a man. His memory is yet fresh among us. He was re- 
peatedly elected Representative from Leominster. He died at the age 
of sixty years. During the last twenty years our population has been 
steadily increasing, requiring additional force in our profession. Our 
reinforcements have been volunteers, some of whom have been and are 
an honor to our town ; and I am happy to be able to say that we live 
together in great harmony. 

In the early history of the town, Dr. Stone, afterward a prominent 
physician in Harvard, and after him, Dr. Ball, practiced medicine a 
few years in the west part of the town, now called Deanhill. Not 
being burthened with professional business, Dr. B. is said to have in- 
dulged in some rather sharp practice with his landlord. Having bar- 
gained to be allowed a certain sum, to be deducted from the price of 
his board, for each meal at which he might be absent, it so happened 
that when the day of settlement came, the landlord proved to be some- 
what in debt to the boarder. To settle the matter tradition says that 
the parties left it out to referees, whose judgment was that it was a fair 
bargain, and therefore the landlord must pay the balance to the doctor ; 
which of course proves that the doctor was all right. 



4o 

The following poems were contributed by ladies of this town on the 
occasion of the Centennial Celebration : 

CENTENNIAL SONG OF THE NASHUA. 



BY MRS. L. P. COMEE. 



Gorgeously as now, at even, 

Golden banners gleamed and burned 
On the western walls of Heaven, 

As the day to darkness turned, 
Brilliantly as now, at morning, 

Did my crystal waters glow 
In the red light of a dawning, 

Just One Hundred Years ago. 

Just the same the sky is bending 

Now, as then, o'er hill and plain ; 
Just the same my waves are tending, 

Ever constant, to the main. 
But around me there remaineth, 

In the landscape wide unrolled, 
Scarce a feature that retaineth 

Tint or shape it wore of old. 

Then my dancing waves descended 

Through a valley lone and dim, 
Oft where tangled woods extended 

Darkest shadows o'er my brim. 
Then the wild cat's cry was swelling, 

And the fox's lair was made 
Where are now the church and dwelling, 

And the crowded mart of trade. 

Then old Rollstone, robed and crested 

In unsullied beauty, stood 
Fair as when his Builder rested 



4» 



And pronounced creation "good;" 

Towering grandly and serenely- 
All the circling highlands o'er, 

With his forest garment greenly 
Sweeping downward to my shore. 

Still a king he stands invested 

With the majesty of yore, 
Though the spoiler, man, has wrested 

Many a treasure from his store, 
And a king he long will tower, 

Though with scarred dismantled breast, 
Ere the human insect's power 

Lower his proudly lifted crest. 

Where a savage wild extended, 

Under culture's magic hand, 
Orchard groves, with grain lands blended, 

Make a garden of the land 
Where was once the quiet dingle, 

And the meadow, green and still, 
Sounds of saw and hammer mingle 

With the buzzing of the mill. 

Places, once by peace pervaded, 

Picturesquely wild and sweet, 
Now are nicely trimmed and graded, 

For the iron courser's feet. 
Hark ! he comes — his neighs awaken, 

Trumpet-like the echoes nigh, 
And the solid hills are shaken, 

As he grandly thunders by. 

All around bespeaks mutation, 

But the wizzard, where are they ? 
'Neath whose hands, this transformation 

E 



4 2 



Grew like magic day by day. 
All are changed — in shape's immortal, 

Hundreds dwell in that fair clime, 
Far beyond the Death-watched portal 

Opening out from earth and time. 

Many here are still remaining, 

But their silvered temples show 
That the sands of life are waning, 

And will shortly cease to flow. 
Change on change is still the story, 

Old things pass and new have birth. 
Youth's bright locks grow thin and hoary, 

And at last return to earth. 

Change on change beyond expression, 

Over all, in all appears, 
Footmarks of the long procession 

Of a hundred passing years. 
But the same blue sky is bending. 

Now as then, o'er hill and plain, 
Just the same my waves are tending, 

Ever constant to the main. 



A HYMN OF THANKSGIVING. 



BY MRS. C. M. LOWE. 



To the God whose hand hath brought us 

Safely to this blessed hour, 
Who hath guarded, saved, and taught us, 

We ascribe all praise and power. 

Let the souls, who now in glory, 
Smile on ways their feet once trod, 

Sing with us the grateful story 
Of the goodness of our God. 



43 



For the dear homes in the valley, 
For the hills we call our own, 

Foi the changing wondrous beauty 
Which a hundred years have shown. 

For the blossoms and the harvests, 
For the sunshine and the rain, 

Flows our praise to Thee, O Father ! 
In a never ending strain. 

For the music of the waters, 

For the songs of breeze and bird, 

For the deep and hidden heart springs, 
By these sweet home-echoes stirred. 

For the waking after sleeping, 
For the peace that follows strife, 

For the smiling after weeping, 
And the deaih that leads to life. 

For the smiles of little children. 

For the bowed and silvered head, 
For the friends who are still with us, 

And the memory of our dead. 

For the young souls counted worthy, 

Of a hero's great reward, 
For the young lives given for freedom, 

Here we thank Thee, O, our God! 

For the true, and brave, and faithful, 
Whom we miss or mourn to-day, 

For the love that brings them near us, 
Let us bless Thee while we pray. 

And we leave our past and future, 
And the years that are to come, 

In the hand that holds our country, 
And will lead its children home. 



44 
SONG. 



BY MRS. CAROLINE A. MASON. 



Air ; " Fine Old English Gentleman." 

Come listen, friends and neighbors all ! a story I'll relate 
About a famous little town in Massachusetts State. 
I hope I shan't be tiresome now ; I'll try to do my best ; 
And if I say a stupid thing, just take it for a jest. 

Tra, la, la, &c. 

There's that about the people there is very strange to view : 

They eat and drink, for all the world, as other people do ! 

They know the way from hand to mouth ; indeed, I've heard it said, 

They know an oyster from a goose, and ham from baker's bread. 

Tra, la, la, &c. 

This simple folk in politics have such a funny creed ; 
They all believe in Uncle Sam, and vow they won't secede. 
Nay, on the other hand, they swear they're ready all to strike 
A sturdy blow 'gainst those who do ; who ever heard the like ? 

Tra, la, la, &c. 

This honest people, it is said, have churches, six or seven ; 

Each claims, — though all take different paths, — one only leads to heaven, 

And that's the one they're walking in ; of course it must be so, 

But how to reconcile it all, it puzzles one, you know ! 

Tra, la, la, &c. 

I'm told this famous little town, for just a hundred years, 
Has had a name and place on earth, but, strange as it appears, 
Not one of all the dozen men who settled here at first 
Has come to-day to see the place his youthful fancy nursed ! 

Tra, la, la, &c. 



45 

And stranger still, not one of us, — unless we live till then, — 
Will ever see another day like this come back again ; 
At least, I'll venture to assert this much, if nothing more, 
The most of us will not be here in Nineteen Sixty-four / 

Tra, la, la, &c. 

That being so, it but remains to do the best we can 

To emulate the good old times, and each one to a man 

Revere, and love and cherish well this famous little spot; 

I think I needn't tell its name ; you've guessed it, — have you not ? 

Tra, la, la, &c. 



'^•SS^iS'^'^^Ss^ilta; 



Correspondence. 



LETTER FROM REV. C. B. BARTON. 

Woodburn, III., June 21, 1864. 
Mr. John Farwell, — 

Dear Sir — I have just received au iuvitatiou sent by you to attend the Cen- 
tennial Celebration of the incorporation of the town of Fitchburg on the 
30th instant. 

Your " very distinct remembrance of many of your childish days being 
spent with me and my youngest sister," cannot be more so than mine. Since 
those days I have traveled far, resided in many places, pissed through many 
impressive scenes, and formed many intimate acquaintances that have long 
since been literally forgotten ; but the name and person of John Farwell, the 
most intimate companion of my childhood, remains uneffaced and undimraed 
on my memory. How often have I goue back to those brief, happy years and 
lived them over again in imagination. There is no one desire of an earthly 
nature, that I have so long and ardently cherished as to visit again the place 
of my nativity. I cannot believe there will be present at your approaching 
celebration an individual to whom it will be a more eventful day than it would 
be to me were I permitted to be present. But circumstances render it im- 
practicable. Fifty-four years have passed away since I was born in that 
beautiful village ; and though I left it at seven years of age, yet are the re- 
membrances of its situation and surroundings distinct and impressive. 

Were I set down at the hour of midnight in the midst of the town, I could 
easily (I imagine) find my way to the dear old home, on the slope of the hill, 
at the foot of which stands, or stood, the church where my father preached. 
On passing up, another church I could go to, Haskel's store, on to the bridge, 
over upon the common, where you and I witnessed the muster drills of those 
days, wondering if ever we too should be men. And there, too, is Rollstone 
hill (was not that the name)? where we gathered blue berries, and up the 
river, the pond where we, with older brothers, fished in summer and skated 
in winter. I still see everything as it then was ; every turn in the river, the 
brooks winding through the meadows, the fields, the orchards, the stone 
walls (what I have not seen since), and all the buildings, dwelling houses, 
barns, stores, shops, &c, &c. 



47 

But more distinct than all else is the -dear old homestead. There Is the 
tvall below and back of the house filled to the top with earth; on the upper 
side, the great pear tree, and grape vine under it, and the barn further up the 
hill, and the orchard still beyond. And there is the garden and grass below, 
through which ran diagonally a little path for little feet, your home and mine 
at the two ends of it. And now I am looking into the house itself; every 
room from cellar to garret is familiar. In the front entry, fifty years ago the 
first day of September next, I yashed my thumb with the new Barlow father 
gave me as a birthday present, and to this day the scar remains. And from 
the other entrance goes up the long broad flight of stairs, down which I once 
came (you remember) so precipitately as to raise a large bump of caution, 
the mark of which I have ever since carried on my forehead. 

Bump of caution, I said, but how I forget ! Why ! there was no such thing 
in those days as the science of Phrenology ; no, nor anything else that is the 
order of the day now. Those were the times of customs, habits, thoughts 
and pursuits that later improvements have rendered obsolete. Young Ameri- 
ca was then undeveloped. 

Do you not remember how we took off our hats to superiors and strangers? 
and how all the stores and shops were shut up at sundown Saturday night, 
and the Sabbath began at that hour in more true earnest with all (lasses than 
is manifested in any of its homes by many now. Sermons then were meas- 
ured by hours, now only by minutes. Then, too, the churches had pastors 
who were privileged to preach the truth, answerable alone to God. Now 
they have stated supplies restricted to preach only what will not offend trans- 
gressors. 

But again I forget, for doubtless the march of improvement has left its 
heavy footprints on your village and its environs. O, this age of improve- 
ment, what havoc it makes with our old cherished associations. Literally, 
" The hills are brought low and the valleys are exalted;" and were I to come 
back to Fitchburg I fear it would not be Fiichburg to me. The tooth of time, 
and the tools of art have doubtless so destroyed and so created anew that I 
should find little remaining in correspondence to the picture paiuted on mem- 
ory's imperishable tablet. 

How could I bear to find Rollstone hill removed to make way for your Rail- 
road, and all the other hills and slopes brought down into the valleys, and the 
very river made to run up stream in order to keep pace with the march of 
improvement. But I am confident I should find much to gratify me in more 
important matters than material things. I should fiud in your town, as in 
almost all your commonwealth, a gigantic growth and development in the 
great principles of truth and righteousness. It is gratifying to know that 
where my father faithfully ministered the truths ot God's word touching <>tir 
relatious to man as well as our Maker, there the fruit is abundant. There 
are doubtless among you those who remember how he endured for the truth 's 



48 



sake, and such will rejoice with me in the fact that those principles for which 
he so earnestly and manfully contended, have prevailed. He fell before he 
saw the triumph of truth, before the yokes of oppression in our land were 
completely broken. But it pleased God to suffer his mantle to fall on me, and 
taking his place in the pulpit for near a quarter of a century, it has been my 
aim to stand in my lot as he stood in his, fearless of consequences, and 
amidst scorn and reproach I have plead for Jesus in the person of his suffer- 
ing and despised poor ; and I live to see the dark cloud lifting from our 
national horizon, and to join in the general shout to God who giveth us the 
victory, that the power of the oppressor is broken. 

1 should be greatly pleased to hear from you, to renew in the decline of life 
the intimacy of our childhood. And it may be that in the good Providence 
that has watched over us so long, and so far separated, we may yet look upon 
each other and speak face to face. 

Yours in long and happy remembrance. 

C. B. Barton. 



LETTER FROM J. R. BRIGHAM. 

Milwaukee, June 17, 1864. 
Alvah Crocker, Esq., Chairman; Ebenezer Torrey and others, Commit- 
tee of Arrangements, — 

Gentlemen — I have received your invitation to attend the celebration of the 
one hundredth anniversary of the incorporation of the town of Fitchburg on 
the 30th iust. 

It is not possible for me to be present, but I heartily thank you for the note 
of invitation, with which you have honored me. As I read it and note some 
fami iar names on the Committee, my native town is brought vividly back to 
recollection, as it was twenty- five years ago, and more when we spelt its name 
without the final h; before your chairman, with others, had succeeded in put- 
ting the locomotive, with its iron track and thuu lering train in the place of 
the " big teams " that U9ed to crawl their way to Boston and return, making 
a quick trip in six days ; when the " old city " was little else than the " stone 
f tctory " and a farm; when bovs, and men, too, played ball on the Common, 
which was then a waste of sand (well covered with granite blocks and chips), 
from the Unitarian '• Meeting House" to the " Lower Tavern " and without 
enclosure or improvement of any kind, except the town pump and a huge 
sign post; when the old yellow " town school-house " held a prominent place 
at the head of the street, aud the orchard next, which, I think, one member 
of your Committee and all of the boys of that period will remember, had no 
other fence at its front, on the main street of the village, than u rough stone 
wall, containing, I verily believe, more stones than can be found in any one 
place in all Wisconsin. But I suppose they— both the school-house and the 



49 

stone wall -have, before this, yielded to some modern i nprovement. Indeed, 
I am not sure, so rapid is the march of progress, but that people now g a m ir- 
ried in Fitchburg without being " publishe I " over th • well rem «mber d auto- 
graph of the D >ctor, who must excuse me for s lying that [ am hardly fre • yet 
from my boyish belief, that he w.is created Clerk of the Town and Captain of 
the Fusiliers. 

Other names tint I see before me I remember well, and with pleasa it asso- 
ciations; but one. Mr. Wood's, brings to my mini his late associate in business, 
my old play fellow, school mite and friend, Goldsmith F. Bailey. My acquaint- 
ance with him dating back to the time when he was a shop boy in Mr. Crocker's 
book bindery, and which was in imate while we were together, did n it <lr >p 
with my leaving Fitchburg, but continued through the printing office, the law- 
yer's office, and the Legislature, and until he died, a member of Congress; and 
if I were adte 1 for a sentiment at your celebration, and might give the one 
most in my heart, I would choose this : 

The late Goldsmith F. Bailey — " A good specimen of a Ne sv England man. 
Beginning life a poor and orphan boy, with no special aid or advantages, ex :ept 
the precepts and prayers of an excellent mother, by his own industry and faith- 
fulness, he became a learned and successful lawyer, and a wise and useful 
legislator, respected and beloved alike by his clients and his c mstuuents, by 
his brethren at the bar, and hi* associates in legislative l> > li^s. His life was a 
wortiiy example of which his naive town may w dl be proud, his eirly death 
was a public calamity." 

Very truly your fellow citizen and obedient Servant, 

J. R. Brigham. 



LETTER FROM JAMES E WHARTON. 

Farkersburg, W Va., June 23, 1864. 
Gentlemen of the Committee of Arrangements— [ hiv • re • >ived y >ur invita- 
tion to attend the Centennial Celebration of th • birth of yon;- '"cuii'ul town, 
and I earnestly hoped that I should be able to be with you, an I once more s e 
the hills and valleys of my nativity, and greet the tew remaining friends I have 
among you; but. duties have bee i imposed on ine connected with our State 
Sanitary Fair, which I cannot neglect, as they are so intimately associated with 
the welfare of our brothers and sons I . i the army. I feel that I have no right 
to enjoyment until I have given my mite towards the quelling of this infamous 
and unnatural rebellion. 

With the e invent hop • fiat your celebration may be all th it yo.i would de- 
sire, and for the prosperity and happiness of all yourp -ople, 
I am truly your obe Kent servant, 

Jas. K. Wharton. 

F 



5° 



LETTER FROM CHARLES LYMAN GARFIELD. 

Albany, N. Y., June 29, 1864. 
J. T. Farwell, for the Committee, Fitchburg, Mass., — 

Dear Sir— I beg to acknowledge the receipt of your complimentary card to 
the "Dinner for the Ceuten lial Celebration, at Fitchburg, June 30, 1864," as 
well as your circular a few days since. It would afford me gre.it pleasure to 
be pre&e.nt, to recall the see ies of my childhood, to congratulate you person- 
ally, a id to parti lerally in the celebration. 

It is over forty years since I visited my friends at Fitchburg, and I regret 
exceedingly that my business engagements are such, at this writing, as to pre- 
clude my acceptance ol'y >ur kind invitation not only, but to preclude even a 
sketch of my early recollections both of the plr.ee and the good old families 
there. 

If Sheriff Calvin Will ml (that model old gentleman) shall be one of your 
guests, whom I have ha I ihe pleasure of welcoming at my father's, in Troy, 
as well as enjoying his cordiality at Worcester, within twenty years, give him 
the right hand of fellowship, and bear my good wishes and that of my mother, 
now living in Troy, for his continued health and prosperity, and when I take 
an excursion eastward I will call on you and reciprocate the favor. 

My father, Lyn Id, was gathered to his fathers a year since, in green 

old age, honored every hour of his life, leaving a legacy of integrity, patriotism 
and piety to his children, which makes his name precious, and "rather to be 
chose/ " and he was among the pit i'i>ts of your city during 

the last war. He i the better land, where I trust we may all be wheat 

our descendants shall assemble to commemorate the enterprise aud virtues 
of their honored sires, to whose immediate skill and enterprise, as well as 
liberality and loyalty, they shall be so much indebted for what Fitchburg is, 
and what she may be, in our good old Republic. 

And may our Heavenly Father add his blessing aud give you all prosperity 
for two worlds, is the humble and hearty prayer of 
Your obedient servant, 

Charles Lyman Garfield, 
Albany City Bank, Albany, N. Y. 



DISPATCH FROM GOV. ANDREW 

Boston, June 30, 1864. 
Hon. Alvaii Crocker,— 

I deeply regret that imperative necessity keeps me away from Fitchburg 
to-day. Accept my c >r tial wishes for the success of your Celebration and 
prosperity of your town. 

John* A. Andrew. 



\! REV. RI 

Pembe 
To Alvaii Crocker, Esq., Chairman, Ebenezer Ti lnd others, 

Members of the Committee of Arrangements f< ebra- 

tion of the town of Fitehburg, Mass., — 
Gentleman — Your kind and cordial invitation to ion of 

the one hundredth aniversary of the incorporation o1 n duly 

received, and I have answer for some ti 

that I might (if a gracious Providence should * • say to 

you, " Yes, I will gladly come;" but I find m 

bodily infirmities so many, and it is so difficult an mo to 

manage myself away from home, that I feel obliged, on the whole, to give up 
the idea of being with you on the proposed occasion. 

reluctance that I have come to this conclusion. It d me 

a great deal of pleasure to re-visit the endeare I I lab >rs in 

the ministry of Christ; to renew old acquaints i v ry dearly 

beloved friends who still remain on earth, while others have gone, I tru 
a better world; and to recall, in some measure, the vai 
and precious intercourse of hearts and mind Liters' 

welfare in years long gone by. You will have my a your 

celebration may be attended with every circumstance i in 
pleasure, which the occasion is adapted to bring my ardent 

prayers to Heaven for your future prosperity in a ; a civil 

and religious community. 

rs, &a, very respectf 

Putnam. 



' KR FROM REV. WM. P. Til 

;ton, June 29, i 
Mr. Crocker,— 

Dear Sir— I thank yon and the Committee of Arr 
for your very kind and cordial invitation to the Cen row. 

I should be glad to hear the many good words tli ; id if I 

should not be present do not attribute my absence " interest in 

the occasion, or in the good town where I sp i of my 

life, and formed friendships that are fondly and grati l- Hoping 

and believing you will have a happy occasion, 

m yours fraternally, 

YV. P. TlLDE.V. 



LETTER FROM ALANSON BIGELOW. 

Boston, Juuc 28, 1864. 
Hon. Alvaii Crocker: 

My Deal" Sir — I have tho honor to acknowledge the receipt of your invita- 
tion to attend "the Celebration of th ' One Hundredth Anniversary of the in- 
corporation of the Town Df : itchburg," on the thirtieth instant. Thanking 
you for kindly remembering in •, I ii ive to regret, most sincerely, that other 
engagements will deprive in.' of the greit pleasure of being with you ou that 
occasion, which I hope may prove a season oi unalloyed enjoyment to all con- 
cerned. 

That your beautiful town, on the completion of this first century of her 
exist jnce, is fairly entitled to the congratulations of her friends, is manifest 
in her proud position to-day, attained, let me say, through the intelligent 
energy and enterprise of her citizens. May the achievements of the past prove 
the earnest of a prosperity as enduring as die streams which move her mauy- 
sided industries, or the granite frame in which her picture is set. 
Most respectfully and truly, your friend and servant, 

A I.ANSON BlGELOW. 



LETTER FROM LUTHER STONE. 

Worcester, June 25, 1864. 
A. Crocker, Esq., Chairman Committee ot Arrangements, — 

Dear Sir— Your kind note of invitation to attend your Centennial Celebra- 
tion, and the enclosed tickets to the dinu r were duly received. It would 
give me great pleasure to be present on that occasion, but business engage- 
ments in Boston on that day will prevent my doing so. Please accept my 
grateful acknowledgments for your kind invitation, 
While I remain, yours truly, 

Luther Stone. 



LETTER FROM GEN. ROBERT COVVDIN. 

Boston, June 29, 1864. 
J. T. Farwell, Esq., Chairman of Committee, — 

Dear Sir — Your kind invitation, with tickets for Mr s. Cowdin and myself, 
to attend the Centennial Celebration at Fitchburg, June 30th, has been 
received and is highly appieciated, but the uncertainty of the fate of my only 
sou will prevent our acceptance. As a descendant of Fitchburg it would 
have given ine great pleasure to have been with you. With sentiments of the 
highest respect, I am, my dear sir, 

Your obedient servant, 

Robert Cowdin. 



53 



LETTER FROM LUMAN BOYDEN. 

Boston, Juno 28, 18G4. 
J. T. Fahwell, Esq., — 

Dear Sir— The Committee will please accept my thanks for the kind invita- 
tion to be present, also fur a ticket to the dinner, at the contemplated Centen- 
nial Celebration, the 30th inst. Imp irtant duties will deprive me of the 
privilege of berny present, yet rest assured that it is my wish that the occa- 
sion may be pleasant and profitable to the great congregation that will doubt- 
less assemble. It is my prayer that God who has so greatly blessed, may 
give continued blessings for centuries to come. 

Yours respectfully, 

LUMAN BOYDEN. 



LETTER FROM A. O. BIGELOW. 

Boston, June 29, 18G4. 
Hon. Alvah Crocker, — 

Dear Sir — I received a few days since a complimentary ticket to attend the 
festivuies at Fitchburg tomorrow, and till this moment fully hoped I might be 
able to thank you in person. I now find myself obliged to forego the pleas- 
ure I had anticipated, and beg to thank you and o:her members of your com- 
mittee most heartily tor so kindly remembering me. With my best wishes 
that the celebration may be an entire success, and that the affairs of your 
noble town may move as smoothly another huudred years a* they have the 
past, I am, my dear sir, 

Very tru'y yours, 

A. O. BlGELOW. 



LETTER FROM CHARLES H. CRAGIN. 

Georgetown, D. C, June 26, 18G4. 
Gentlemen — I greatly regret that I shall be prevented by duties here from 
accepting your cordial and kind invitation to be present with the sons of 
Fitchburg at their Centennial Anuiversary, next Thursday. The two years I 
passed in your beautiful and hospitable and prosperous town, are reckoned 
among the pleasantest my of life. I assure you hardly anything would be 
pleasanter to me than to be present with you at the " fe.tst ot reason an 1 flow 
of soul." 

With thanks that so humble a name as my own in your annals his been re- 
membered so kindly, 

I am gentlemen, yours most truly, 

Ciias. II. Cragin. 



54 



LETTER FROM ELLERY I. GARFIELD. 

Detroit, July 27, 1864. 
J T. Farwell, Secretary, — 

My Dear Sir— I am in receipt of your invitation to attend the Centennial 
Celebration, on the 30th of June. Nothing would be more gratifying to me 
than to be present, aud be among old friends who will be present on that oc. 
casion. Fitchburg has always had the honor of Deing one of the most enter- 
prising and public spirited towns in the State. And it makes those of us who 
are far away from home, to see aud hear of the high positions takeu by he 
sons, as proud of them as we are for those of our adopted ones. God bless 
the Old Bay State and her noble sons and daughters, who always stand in the 
foremost rank in every cause which is good aud iust. 

Ellery I. Garfield. 



LETTER FROM SUSAN HARRINGTON. 

Lexington, July 1, 1864. 
Mr. Farwell, — 

Dear Sir — We received your very kind invitation to the Centennial Celebra- 
tion. We had made arrangements to accept. With much regret we were un- 
avoidably detained. Please accept many thanks from us. 
Yours, very respectfully, 

Susan Harrington, 
Henry A. Turner. 



LETTER FROM MARTHA GOODRICH. 

Seminary Hospital, Georgetown, D. C, June 25th, 1864. 

Mr. J. T. Farwell, — 

Dear Sir — The card — complimentary — forwarded by you in behalf of the 
committee of the Fitchburg Centennial Celebration, is received. In reply I 
have to state, that it would give me the greatest pleasure to be present on 
that occasion, but my duties at this hospital — with which I am connected — 
will render my attendance impracticable. 

Thanking you for kindness, and hoping you will have, as I believe you will, 
a pleasant patriotic Celebration, I am, 

Most respectfully yours, 

Martha Goodrich. 



55 



LETTER FROM E. A. HUBBARD. 

East Hampton, June, 28, 18G4- 
Alvah Crocker, Esq., and others of the Committee, — 

Gentlemen — Your favor was duly received inviting mc to the Celebration 
in your town the present wesk. The pressure of business renders it impossi- 
ble for me to be with you. 1 regret this the more as I lose the opportunity 
of renewing my acquaintance with your citizens, and especially of greeting 
those who sustained very intimate, and to me at least, very pleasant relations 
for several years in the forming period of their lives. 

May your town still make progress in everything essential to its prosperity. 
Accept my thanks for your kind invitation, and believe me, 

Yours truly, 

E. A. Hubbard. 



LETTER FROM J. S. EATON. 

Andover, May 31, 1864. 

To Hon. A. Crocker, E. Torey, Esq., and others,— 

Gentlemen — Your circular inviting me to attend the Centennial Celebration 
at Eitchburg, June 30th, was received a few days since. I thank you for your 
kind remembrance, and as it will not probably be convenient to me to attend 
the next Centennial at the same place, I gratefully accept the invitation and 
ehall endeavor to be present on the occasion. With great respect 1 am 

Very truly yours, 

J, S. Eaton. 



JUN 13 1907 



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